


Sic Semper Tyrannis

by sawbones



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 19th Century, BDSM, Blood, Cuckolding, Drug Use, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Mental/Physical Abuse, Exhibitionism, Humiliation, M/M, Masochism, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sadism, Violence/Torture/Murder Mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-07-27 03:46:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 49,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7602121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sawbones/pseuds/sawbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Disturbed by manic dreams of gods and tyrants, the Emperor's troubled right hand is pulled from the front lines and sent to an isolated mountain base to recover - unwittingly delivered into the hands of an ambitious young General with the power to blur the lines between reality and depraved fantasy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This originally started life as a rewrite of Venus In Furs for fun, and eventually caught my imagination enough to become its own thing. You don't need to have read the book or know anything about it at all to read this, but there's plenty of nods and references. In all honestly Venus In Furs is a pretty awful book, but still one I hold dear since it helped me discover many things about myself. I hope this homage does it justice.
> 
> All love and kisses to my smut-connoisseur beta reader [kylo-knight-ren](http://kylo-knight-ren.tumblr.com).

\--

 

“Love knows no virtue, no profit; it loves and forgives and suffers everything, because it must. It is not our judgement that leads us; it is neither the advantages nor the faults that makes us abandon ourselves, or that repel us.

It is a sweet, soft, enigmatic power that drives us on. We cease to think, to feel, to will; we let ourselves be carried away by it, and ask not whither.”

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, _Venus in Furs_

\--

 

Kylo knelt by the feet of Ares – not some brass-buttoned war dog who dragged legions of men through mud into cannon fire, but the real, true god of war; hated and beautiful. Ares sat forward in his armchair, his stone face turned to the fireplace like he drank the heat from it, and drew the great fur cloak he wore a little closer around his bare shoulders.

“Are you cold, Lord?” Kylo asked from his place on the floor, hardly daring to speak at all. Ares didn’t look at him, kept his head turned to the fire that cast his features in such a brutal relief against the shadow.

“I am always cold in your world,” the god said, sounding petulant, “After all, what would _you_ know of warmth? You are serious, and severe, and by your very nature cold.”

“That isn’t true,” Kylo said and when Ares’ pale gaze turned on him, pinning him in place, he thought his heart would beat out of his chest, “I burn, Lord. In my heart of hearts, I am aflame, I burn—“

“With what, desire? Love?” Ares gestured towards Kylo with a terrible smile, “Devotion?”

When Kylo nodded in earnest, Ares laughed bitterly and swivelled back to the fire, leaving him to grope for some sort of appeasement, “I am bound to you, Lord. I lie at your feet, I am faithful, I swear.”

“Fealty and duty. Dour as ever,” the god of war muttered, hands of marble twisting in his sables, “What of passion? What of blood? Must you be so insufferably serious?”

“You are cruel,” Kylo said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

“And you long to feel the weight of my foot on your neck with no mercy, Kylo Ren. That’s why you come to me on hand and knee, dark head to the floor,” Ares said, “I am despot, villain, loathsome to man and god, yet you throw yourself at my heels and pledge devotion. I see you. I _know_ you, cold heart. You seek this cruelty, but what do you bring me in return?”

So great was the fear that he might be spurned that Kylo felt tears pricking his eyes, and his face burned with shame. Ares seemed to be weighing him up with an amused look and then beckoned him forth with a curl of one finger. Kylo’s breath left him in a sob of relief and he pushed forward, pressing his face into the soft fur across his god’s heavenly lap.

“I will take everything from you,” Ares said, touch gentle on the crown of Kylo’s head, “And you will find what you seek when you wake up.”

“My Lord?” Kylo raised his tearful gaze.

“ _Wake up_.”

\--

A hand on his shoulder shook him gently. Kylo blinked in the watery grey morning light and lifted his head from the crook of his elbow where he had fallen asleep, half sprawled over the small writing desk. The footman who had woken him took a half step back as though he was afraid to get too close, and politely cleared his throat.

“Pardon me Lord Ren, but your carriage awaits you outside,” he said, “Your luggage has already been loaded.”

Kylo waved the footman away with a sweep of his hand and leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling of the spartan little inn they stopped in, one of four so far in their journey from the front lines to the mountains, and hopefully the last. Disregarding the need for food or a fresh change of clothes, Kylo pushed himself to his feet, swung on his great black overcoat and went downstairs to where the rest of the party was waiting for him.

He travelled alone in the small coach while the two Knights that accompanied him rode some distance on, ensuring there would be no trouble on the road ahead. Kylo knew he should have been revising the dossier sent to him, pulling together all the strings of his web to present something tangible for this nest of Majors and Colonels and of course the illustrious Generals themselves, but he spent his time staring out of the window instead. He watched the hills and valleys suddenly hitch themselves into crags and mountains, slopes shrouded in thick black-green forest and low-hanging cloud. A half dozen villages rattled by, each as sombre and non-descript as the last, and Kylo found his thoughts harried by his heavenly Ares once again.

He suffered under that millennia-old yolk of love, of devotion for a long dead deity. Ares shot arrows through his dreams, speared his every waking thought, waged war on any moment’s solitude he could find. The lofty brow, the proud nose, the smile so terrible; that wicked gaze, devastating and beloved by Aphrodite. Kylo was both blessed and cursed by his nightly visits. He _suffered_.

There was a familiar throb of pain from somewhere behind his eyes that set Kylo’s teeth on edge, but just as he was about to thump the roof of the coach to have it stop so he could fetch the laudanum from his trunk, the horses took a sharp turn left and brought a great house into view. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it at first glance; it was tremendously big, though not quite as big as he had anticipated, and the ivy that smothered its grey stone face meant it very nearly blended into the thick forest around it. A small gaggle of men in uniform waited in the tiny front gardens along with the Knights who had ridden ahead, and from the angle of his approach Kylo could see that in contrast the gardens behind the house stretched for what looked like acres.

The coach stopped by the front of the house and Kylo alighted without waiting for the footman to see to the door and steps. He made his way straight to the group of officers who were no doubt waiting for his arrival. As he approached, the two Knights snapped to attention rigidly, causing the others to look around at him in that lackadaisical way only the high ranking could manage.

“Ah, and here’s the very man himself,” the tall red headed man in the midst of the gathering announced, a General according to the silver-on-gold paroli at his stiff collar, “Lord Ren, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“General Hux,” Kylo said, taking the offered hand and shaking it only once before letting go. He made note of the poorly hidden insolence underlining that ‘finally’, and how he didn’t remove his black leather gloves to shake hands either.

The General offered him a thin smile and gestured to each of his comrades in turn, “May I introduce General Guymar Harrow and Brigadier-General Clera Nell.”

He barely glanced at the others, “Is this all?”

Hux’s thin smile stretched thinner yet. There was a sharp quality to it that needled Kylo, “There are others inside, some have already come and went. Only a few of us will actually be staying here for any length of time, of course.”

“In case the Resistance scum catch wind of us here and get it in their heads to try something,” the small pinched woman introduced as Brigadier-General Nell said in a curiously animated manner, as though she quite wished they would.

“Emperor Snoke speaks very highly of you and your order, Lord Ren,” Harrow added, “Your campaigns have dealt many an invaluable blow against our enemies.”

“Will you have need of me today?” Kylo asked Hux directly, knowing precisely where the centre of power lay. He had little care for small talk and self-congratulations, and the pressure behind his eyes was growing unbearable.

“Not in person,” Hux said with a dismissive turn of his wrist. There were a few raised eyebrows around the group but no-one dared to say a word, “We’re still waiting on a few others. Rebels causing trouble on the south west approach to the mountain or some such. Send over your dossier this evening, at the very least I can glance through it.”

Kylo nodded and snapped off a sharp salute for Hux alone before he turned heel and made for the house.

On the steps to the door Kylo overheard the patter of a joke, then Hux laughed and his stomach tightened.

Was he laughing at him?

\--

The next few days were a haze of activity that Kylo could scarcely remember. He rarely left his appointed chambers but for the few times he was summoned to certain meetings and discussions, held in a great room that might once have held balls instead many years ago before greying sheets were thrown over the gauche furniture and the gilt started peeling from the plaster cornicing.

Invariably, he found himself a seat at the edge and sat in silent observation while plans were made and reports given; he had shared his own dossier with Hux as requested, though little mention of it was made in those rooms crowded with brass. The Knights of Ren moved on a different battlefield altogether, and all this talk was as far removed from him as he was from the boom of the cannons. Still, he offered his assistance in broken, bitten off sentences whenever it was solicited since that was what Emperor Snoke had personally sent him to do. He was to aid the good General and the rest of the military tops in formulating the next stage of their plan and how to implement it; Snoke had implied it would do Kylo well to be turned from single-minded bloodiness for a short time, to put his talents to the never ending chess game of tactics instead.

Kylo spent most of those meetings fixated on the slender cane Hux carried with him, how keenly it cut through the air as he gestured at maps and diagrams with increasing passion. The General’s pallid cheeks took on a remarkable scarlet flush during those moments, serving to highlight his extraordinary colouring. There was a savage twist to his mouth; he looked powerful as he strode up and down the room, cane in hand – he looked _inflamed,_ so full of blood and vigor.

Although they took only a few hours each, the discussions felt as though they lasted for days at a time, and Kylo left them with an aching head fogged by topography and troop movements – and there above it all, cutting through it like a knife, was Hux’s wicked switch.

\--

On the fourth night, Kylo mixed several drops of laudanum with a glass of wine and placed a further few under his tongue directly before he retired. Still sleep eluded him as it so often did, and he was left to brood in a dispassionate haze until he could stand it no longer, and he escaped his rooms to seek out the peace of the gardens.

Like the rest of the house and grounds, the gardens implied a long forgotten grandeur; they were expansive, pushing out far into the forest, simply a tiered lawn at first and then flower beds, a ring of stone benches, and beyond that still there lay a pond and a gazebo, mostly hidden by the trees. He was sure it would have been quite gay at one time, before the paint flaked from the wood and when there was still someone to clear the pond of scum.

However, Kylo was not seeking the gazebo, nor the pond: here and there throughout the garden lay the Greek pantheon in pieces. Some had lost limbs, others noses and ears; poor Aphrodite in the rose bed had lost her head entirely – but there in the trees by the pond was her lover, dreaded Ares, whole and bold with his spear thrust to the sky like he sought to pierce the moon itself.

Kylo was seized by the same fear that caught him when he found this Ares on the first evening in the house, and he threw himself down in the grass below it and pressed his feverish face to the cool stone of his plinth. Cast in shadow, worn with time, haloed by cold and loveless moonlight, even then he looked unspeakably beautiful-- or perhaps simply unspeakable. There was no name for what Kylo felt but he felt it with a morbid intensity, and he prayed out loud to his god that one day he might find that cruel spear pointed at his heart.

To love a man who could only respond to that love with a sneer of disgust carved in white marble was madness; to be trodden underfoot by a beautiful tyrant was terrible, tormenting _bliss_.

\--

Kylo wasn’t sure how many hours he’d passed in his rapture at Ares’ feet, though when he awoke the moon had crawled across the sky and his shirt was damp with perspiration and the night’s dew. On unsteady legs he stood and made his way back to the main house; he was chilled to the bone and shivering, and he was sure to be ill by the morning. Still he felt oddly at peace, rested as though he had just slept in a feather bed instead of curled in the grass like a fawn.

There was an august figure standing in the doorway of the house as Kylo made his wandering way up the lawn. He nearly froze in place: Ares again? Ares in the flesh, waiting for him? Had he died in the night, or perhaps he had finally went mad? As he came closer, it became apparent this time it was the sharp General Hux, his wan face white in the darkness. He was wearing a great fur coat against the mountain chill and had a cigarette in hand; for some reason, Kylo’s nervousness was not calmed. He couldn’t take his eyes from Hux as he approached, nor did Hux look away from him once. He wore a wonderful expression of cool amusement, like he was observing some odd little specimen under a lens.

“For without a doubt he is like all the gods of Ancient Greece: only a devil in disguise,” the General said as he took another draw of his cigarette. Kylo faltered and found his mouth too dry to respond. Hux smiled, and smoke seeped from between his teeth. Devil indeed! “Goethe.”

Goethe, of course it was Goethe. Kylo wanted to nod and say ‘Faust, I recall’ so as to appear less like some wild, brainless creature caught in a snare but he couldn’t, because he saw for the first time Hux was not wearing his leather gloves, his perfect hands exposed, and it was as though they had wrapped themselves around his throat.

With a wordless noise of horror Kylo fled up the stair and into the dark house, and once more Hux’s laughter followed him.

\--

In the morning after, when the laudanum haze and his nightly mania had left him, Kylo sat on one of the stone benches by the rose bed under the decapitated Aphrodite. He had brought a book with him, some dusty volume that he’d lifted from a shelf in his bedroom, but found he couldn’t concentrate on the words in the slightest. The weak spring sun lifted itself meekly over the treeline like it didn’t have the strength to rise fully and he felt a begrudging sort of empathy with it.

A presence made itself known to him and he looked up sharply from the yellowed pages on his lap to see General Hux approaching. He cut a handsome figure in his black uniform, and Kylo felt as though it was impossible to look at anything else in the garden but him. He was tall in a way that always seemed surprising, in the sense that he gave the impression he ought to be smaller. He was elegantly proportioned, long in limb and trim in waist but by no means _waifish,_ and he moved like he owned all the earth. There was a classical turn about his features, something of the Roman in the prominent sweep of his cupid’s bow and the curve of his soft chin.

“Lord Ren, good morning,” the General said, sitting down on the bench beside Kylo without waiting to be invited. He seemed oddly hale for someone who surely got less sleep than even Kylo did, “I must apologise for last night; I fear I gave you quite a fright.”

Kylo realised he must have been staring and looked away, closing his book, “You needn’t concern yourself.”

“I’m not so sure,” Hux said, and took out a small silver cigarette case. He offered one to Kylo – who declined – before taking one for himself, “Your dossier makes note of an illness, though seems to rather deliberately step around the nature of it. You will forgive my indelicacy but you must understand the importance of our purpose here, and I need to know my men like the back of my own hand if we are to succeed.”

Kylo thought of Hux’s bare hands and how they had frightened and thrilled him. He frowned, “I have headaches, and they interrupt my restfulness. Sometimes the lack of sleep makes me delirious, almost manic. It doesn’t interfere with my abilities. I operate adequately.”

“More than adequately, I should hope, or else our dear Emperor has been blowing much hot air about you for no reason,” Hux lit his cigarette and caught it between his lips as he considered Kylo with raised brows. His answer seemed to satisfy him, and he pressed on his condition no longer, “I’ve always wanted to meet a Knight of Ren, you know. I barely got a word from any of your escorts. You seem like the maddest of tribes; the stories I’ve heard are unreal.”

“I hope I am to your satisfaction,” Kylo said, his grip on his book tightening like he might use it as a shield.

“I suppose that remains to be seen. Tell me one thing though: are you all so bloody churlish?”

Kylo felt an odd prickle up his spine at the teasing comment, somehow insulted even though he knew the General was only making fun. He wanted quite desperately to be left alone, but when he made to stand up a gloved hand on his arm stopped him. The strength in its grip threatened to squeeze the air from his lungs.

“You will sit with me until I finish my cigarette, then we will break fast together. I know you’ve not eaten, you look ghastly,” Hux said. He didn’t move his hand.

Kylo set his jaw, “Do we have business together today?”

“Landslides from the spring melt have shut off most roads to the mountain. We will be quite alone for a few days, so no briefings at least. We can discuss our current progress over breakfast like civilised men, and see where the day takes us from there,” Hux said, “You can even regale me with tales of your Knights of Havoc.”

He stiffened, “That’s classif—“

“Classified information, I know. You’ll find some other way of entertaining me, I’m sure. Perhaps you can recite a little from your book,” Hux said, exhaling smoke through his nose. He took a small silver cylinder from his pocket and put the extinguish cigarette butt inside, “What is it you’re reading anyway?”

Kylo turned the book over in his hand to inspect the narrow spine; he hadn’t even glanced at it when he grabbed the first book that he could reach on the way out the door. The author’s name was poorly embossed but still clear, and Kylo felt a sudden rush of blood to his face: _M. de Sade_. He considered lying but he was certain Hux would know immediately, as he seemed to know so much already, “ _Justine ou Les Malheurs de la vertu.”_

“Oh Lord Ren, at this time of day?” General Hux said and then laughed in that same wicked manner he had the night before. He stood up from the bench and offered his arm to Kylo, his eyes bright, “Come, you detestable creature. I prefer _Juliette_ anyway.”

\--

It took nearly five entire days to clear the road enough to let travellers through to the manse again because of adverse weather, and Kylo spent the best part of those days in the close company of General Hux. They had their meals together more often than not, and though the driving rain mostly kept them indoors, they walked through the gardens when they could. Hux didn’t like to smoke indoors and he claimed walking helped him think, so when the rain rattled the windows he would pace around the room twisting his cane in his hands and bouncing ideas off Kylo.

His input was not required during these brain-storming hours – his silence was preferable, actually, as any suggestion of his was usually met with a look of disdain that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Kylo didn’t know why Hux desired his company during those lonely grey days other than perhaps simply to have an audience, but he was glad of it. Hux, he had soon discovered, was completely maddening, and impossible, and a genius, and indescribably _wonderful_.

The plans he shared with Kylo ten were ten times as ambitious and far reaching as those brought to the table of their meetings. He spoke of his dreams, his desires, his sweeping plans to bring glory to the new empire, and there were times Kylo desired to throw himself at the feet of this burning, brave commander. He knew that the facetious, overly familiar way of acting had to be a façade, that this was what really lay at the General’s heart.

“I’m building a machine,” Hux declared one afternoon in the gazebo as they sought shelter from a sudden cloudburst on one of their strolls. Rain fell hard enough to make a mist of the surface of the pond, and it sounded like infantry drumroll on the roof, “A weapon like no other.”

Kylo sat forward on the bench and watched the General stalk around the tiny wooden stand, and the way he rolled his hips reminded him of jungle cats. He thought of fingers like claws hidden beneath black leather gloves and longed to feel them bite into his flesh. The thought surprised Kylo, unbidden, unwelcome, and painfully true.

“It will be capable of wiping out whole villages, towns, _cities_ even,” Hux continued with a joyful swing of his cane, “It could level this whole rotten mountain. Can you imagine that, Lord Ren? Can you imagine having a hundred thousand lives in the palm of your hand and just—closing your fist?“

Kylo could imagine it all too well – had come close to that feeling many times in his own life so far and would come closer yet—so he nodded and smiled and tried to look engaged.

At night, Ares came to him in his dreams with flushed cheeks and cold green eyes.

\--

Of course their sudden and strange solitude couldn’t last, and soon the house was as busy as it had been before. Kylo felt himself soured by every new face that appeared with the sort of jealous pettiness of a child deprived of attention. It came as a surprise to him then when one evening a runner appeared at his door with a note from General Hux enquiring as to _why_ Kylo hadn’t bothered to show for their last three meals together. It informed him he was being impossibly rude and under no uncertain terms was he to dine without him again.

Kylo buried the note in his trunk like it was some precious relic and hurried down stairs.

“That night in the garden when you ran from me – what was it you saw?” Hux asked over one such meal, “Was I really so grotesque?”

“The opposite, actually,” Kylo said. Their burgeoning familiarity and an extra dose had made him bold, “I often have dreams of the Greek gods, and it was of them I was hallucinating. I saw you in the doorway and thought you one of them.”

Hux smiled and gestured at Kylo with his wine glass, “Who? Apollo, perhaps? I think we are quite suited.”

“Ares.”

“Ares,” Hux repeated, his brow contracted. He seemed displeased, “What was it Zeus said to him? ‘To me you are the most hateful of all gods who hold Olympus’. I hope this doesn’t foreshadow a quarrel with Snoke.”

“Ares is as powerful as he is loathsome; in Sparta they devoted themselves to him as the perfect soldier. To them, nothing could surpass him in strength or beauty,” Kylo said.

“He lost the Trojan War to his sister Artemis,” Hux replied, still not convinced of Kylo’s flattery, “She was the superior tactician in battle.”

“Artemis grubs in the dirt with animals. She’s more a deer herder than a general,” Kylo said, and this made Hux toss his brassy head with a bark of laughter.

“So I am the despised Ares, god of war. Fitting, I suppose,” he said, and leaned forward on his elbows, “But who does that make you, Lord Ren?”

Kylo hesitated: there was only one answer he could possibly give but he didn’t know how to phrase it tastefully, “An acolyte.”

“You think so lowly of yourself. We are equals, are we not?” Hux asked and sat back in his chair again.

“There is no equality in any partnership, professional or otherwise; one half must have control or else they will ever be butting heads. Discord reigns in partnerships of so-called equals,” Kylo said carefully, “In such circumstances, it would please me more to be the tool than the hand that wields it.”

“How serious you sound. And so you desire to be the Spartan to my Ares?” the General asked.

Kylo nodded once. His breath was coming quick and light as a sparrow’s but he didn’t dare say ‘yes, god, yes’ out loud. The room was very quiet then as Hux pondered what Kylo had said, and Kylo himself fought the urge to flee it altogether. He was certain he was going to scolded, or mocked, or chased away entirely—but instead Hux merely smiled to himself and raised his glass again.

“You are a strange man indeed, Lord Ren.”

\--

Their conversation that afternoon was not mentioned again for several weeks, nor so much as even referenced. It was almost as though Hux had forgotten it entirely in the tide of military business that swept them both up and kept them occupied; Kylo was not sure whether he was relieved or disappointed by this – perhaps both. Either way, he was resolved to not bring it up first if it was ever to be remembered at all.

His odd companionship with Hux continued as it had been before, and some weeks later they found themselves taking breakfast together. The topic of conversation was General Harrow’s birthday, and despite their inconvenient circumstances it seemed there was to be a party of sorts. All the officers currently on the mountain had been invited, which totalled around thirteen; Kylo assumed their attendance was practically mandatory and almost pitied them for it.

“I really do wish you would attend tonight,”Hux said as he nursed his cup of tea, “In fact, I insist on it.”

Kylo shifted in his seat uncomfortably, his own cup left to grow tepid. He wasn’t sure it was real tea anyway, it had an unfamiliar bitter taste and he knew supplies were having a hard time reaching them through besieged mountain paths, “I would rather not. Besides, I am hardly the ideal guest for this sort of thing.”

The idea of enduring hours of stiff conversation with increasingly drunk sycophants and regime zealots sounded perfectly like hell to Kylo, and the thought of sharing Hux’s attention with such people irritated him even more.

“If I wanted someone blandly affable and entirely inoffensive, I’d be taking tea with Lieutenant Mitaka,“ Hux said, “I can hardly stand to be in the same room as some of those men, but needs must. At least permit me one person worth talking to.”

“You consider me to be that person?” Kylo asked as though he wasn’t entirely sure he’d heard him correctly.

“Yes, you are occasionally worth talking to. When you’re not being perfectly obtuse, that is,” Hux said as he plucked a sugar cube out of the bowl and sucked on it thoughtfully for a moment, “I am fond of you, you know. After a lifetime among the enlisted, finding someone who is with the military but not _of_ it is quite a luxury in its own right - especially a man of your singular talents.”

“Your colleagues don’t seem to agree,” Kylo said.

While he held their opinions in very little regard, he was nevertheless perfectly aware most of them looked down on his very existence at the manse. Some were disgusted by whatever tales of the Knights’ brutality had filtered back through rumour and hearsay, and thought him dangerous or deranged; others found him too uncouth, too unpolished, entirely without the veneer of civilisation they operated under. The rest were simply jealous, sickened that some creature with no breeding and little standing had become sword of the emperor apparently through ability and sheer force of will while they had spent years and perhaps even decades bootlicking and backstabbing their way to a few more buttons on their uniform.

Except Hux, of course. He alone seemed to be different in this. Kylo’s success didn’t threaten him in the slightest. He deserved every scrap he had fought for and won, and Kylo felt as though perhaps they could recognise this in each other, like twins stars of Sirius.

“I won’t leave you to the wolves if that is what you are worried about,” Hux said, and though his words were kind, there was a cruel curl to the edge of his smile, “Speaking of wolves, bring your Knights. At least they’ll make a fine conversation piece.”

\---

The party itself turned out to be a more casual affair than Kylo had anticipated. It began with a dinner and the sort of stiff conversation that usually accompanied such things, and moved on to drinks in the downstairs parlour. Hux had done commendably well organising everything: he had managed to scare up several cases of brandy and a box of cigars, and had even found a couple of musicians from one of the many drab villages Kylo had passed on his journey up the mountain. They were rustic - merely two fiddlers and an accordion player, all labourers of some kind - but by the time most people were in the shirt sleeves and the brandy was flowing, the mood in the manse was better than it had been in weeks.

“Stand _still_ , for goodness sake,” Brigadier-General Clera Nell insisted, one eye closed as she levelled her pistol at one of the fiddlers. He was standing with his back pressed to a bookcase with an empty glass balanced on his head; broken shards littered the carpet at his feet along with fragments of wood and paper, and the bookcase and wall behind him were pockmarked by shot. It was after midnight and he bore an expression of tired resignation - one Kylo had seen many times. Blood dripped from the slack fingers of his left arm, “If you make me miss, I’ll have you shot proper.”

It wasn’t the fiddler that was moving, but Nell herself. She hadn’t even sat down her glass for the parlour trick, and Kylo watch with disinterest as she squeezed the trigger and her shot went wide, sending up a jeering cry from the others watching. A young lieutenant Kylo didn’t know the name of stepped forward, laughing brightly, and held out his hand.

“The old boy kept _moving_ ,” Nell insisted as she returned the pistol to him, earning more laughs and a few slaps on the back. Once again the hat was produced - some black officer’s cap filled with folded paper slips - and the young lieutenant brandished it with glee.

“Next on the plinth is General Hux,” he said, provoking a bank of theatrical gasps. Hux stepped forward, his sleeves rolled up and the top button of his shirt undone. The lieutenant fumbled to unfold the second name, “Against—Lord Ren.”

It was as though someone had put a pin in the jovial mood, and every pair of eyes in the room turned on Kylo. His grip tightened slightly on his glass and he cut a severe look at the man holding the slip of paper; he wasn’t supposed to be part of this game. Nobody moved until Hux sat down his glass and took a step towards Kylo, placing his hand lightly on his arm, and it was like a signal for the others to start breathing again.

“Lord Ren isn’t a marksman,” Hux said, “I wouldn’t want to embarrass him.”

“I can do it,” Kylo objected.

“Perhaps another contest then,” General Harrow suggested mildly from his spot in the crowd, “Sabres? Oh, I have been _so_ eager to see Lord Ren in action.”

“That sounds like a fine idea, Guymar. It is your birthday after all; I’m sure Lord Ren will oblige you,” Hux said. He still had his hand on Kylo’s arm and it was distracting enough that he could not think to form an objection. Hux then gestured at one of the Knights of Ren standing in a silent vigil by the door, “You there, lend me your sword.”

The Knight – a gaunt man by the name of Riktor with a face like a skull and single minded bloodiness that was as much a liability as it was a boon– looked blankly at Hux until Kylo made a minute gesture, at which point he immediately drew his wicked karabela and handed it hilt first to the General. Kylo sat his glass down on a nearby tale and moved into the space they’d cleared in the middle of the parlour before drawing his own batorówka.

“To first blood?” Hux asked, coming closer. He tested the weight of the unfamiliar sabre with a small swing and smile. Kylo nodded once, “Are you ready, Lord Ren?”

Kylo nodded again, signalling the start of their little bout. He was reluctant but willing to go along for the sake of the General’s favour. They circled each other slowly, and while Kylo was usually more inclined to seize the fight by the throat from the get go he held back, wanting to see how Hux would set the pace. This was only a parlour game, after all. Hux took a sudden step towards him—and then paused, lowering his karabela.

“Wait, no. Not in here,” he said after a moment, “Far too small, someone could get hurt. Let us go to the garden.”

Kylo glanced from Hux to the others watching and considered that it wouldn’t be beyond imagination to accidentally catch someone with a particularly wide swing. He frowned slightly and lowered his own sabre.

“If that is what you think—“

Hux slammed the hilt of the blade into Kylo’s temple, knocking him off balance before delivering a vicious kick to the side of one of his knees, causing him to collapse on all fours with his vision reeling before he could even process what had happened. The sharp tip of the karabela pressed the soft flesh under his chin, forcing him to sit back on his heels.

“First blood,” Hux said, nodding to the smear of blood at his temple. The others might have been laughing uproariously if it wasn’t for the two Knights with their hands on their remaining hilts, ready to clear the room with one twitch from Kylo’s hand. He stared up at Hux, whose sneering beautiful smile slid in and out of focus, “We play to win, Lord Ren. By any means.”

He made to move away but Kylo grabbed the blade with his bare hand and moved the tip to rest over his heart. Like the fiddler, blood welled around his fingers. He took a deep shuddering breath, willing that razored point to pierce him through and through. The look on Hux’s face was utterly implacable, a flash of heat behind his eyes, and for the briefest second Kylo felt pressure on the blade. He couldn’t hide the shiver that ran through him when he felt the steel bite.

“Well then,” Hux yanked the blade from Kylo’s grip and dropped it on the floor. He turned to the audience with a smile that was pinned at the corners, “Who shall play next?”

The party stirred back to life again, but Kylo remained where he was for several long, lingering moments. Now that he had been forced to kneel, he wasn’t sure how he could ever rise again.

This filled him with the lightest sense of being.

\--

Kylo was folded into a chair by the fireplace with a book in hand, but his eyes were closed and he was being gently lulled to sleep by the whisper of rain on the window. Hux was nearby, lying on the ottoman with a blanket over his legs, his own book long since discarded on the floor; he had spent most of the day pouring over the first manic draughts of blueprints for his dream weapon and it seemed to exhaust as much as thrill him. Kylo couldn’t remember the last time he felt comfortable enough to sleep by someone who wasn’t one of his own Knights and yet he was very nearly drifting off, but it felt precarious, temporary, like sleeping on a precipice he might roll off of at any moment. He opened his eyes to look at Hux, only to find him already awake and watching him in turn with a half-lidded smile.

“What am I to do with you,” Hux said. His words were soft but they shattered the spell of peace just as well as if he’d shouted.

“Whatever you wish,” Kylo put his book aside and straightened himself a little, “Whatever you would like.”

Hux seemed unmoved by this. He sat up from where he was lying and pulled the blanket from his legs; he pointed at the floor between his bare feet. Heart starting to race, Kylo sprang from his chair to kneel where he’d been shown. Hux took hold of one of his useless hands with remarkable tenderness, and somehow instilled in Kylo a most peculiar dread.

“You have quite beautiful eyes, you know. As sweet and dark as a calf’s,” Hux said in a curiously deliberate manner, as if he was plucking the words out of the air itself, “They betray your every thought.”

Kylo shook his head. The ground was shifting under him.

“I know you desire me.”

“That’s not—“ Kylo began, and Hux immediately let go of his hands.

“I said I was fond of you for your directness once. I suggest you do not start lying now, not when you’re on your knees at my feet,” Hux said, withdrawing, “Besides, it’s painfully obvious every time to you look at me.”

Kylo turned his head and looked away, his jaw clenched shut as he resolved not to embarrass himself any further, but fingers grabbed him by the chin and redirected his gaze back to Hux. He was no longer smiling.

“Do you really want to be devoted to me? Are you quite sure about this _servitude_?”

“Yes,” Kylo said with shaking restraint, “Yes, I am certain.”

“You won’t like it. If you bare your neck to me like this--” Hux’s green eyes disclosed a cold gleam, “This really isn’t wise. It will end badly, and you are sure to suffer. What I did to you at the party, I would do a thousand times over on whim. Perhaps it is time you return to Snoke.”

“Oh, please!” Kylo cried, suddenly throwing himself prostrate. He grasped one of Hux’s bare feet in his hands and pressed a half dozen frantic kisses to it, “Be cruel, be arrogant, but please don’t send me away! If my very nature does not permit me to enjoy the happiness of romantic love then let me drink its dregs and choke!”

“You forget yourself, Lord Ren!” Hux said sharply and delivered a swift kick; immediately Kylo pulled back, shamed once again. Hux seemed to bristle, his fair brow contracted in annoyance or perhaps disgust at the dramatics before he settled again, “I suppose it would be entertaining, at least. I have legions of men at my command and yet none quite like you. I shan’t lack for a pastime.”

Kylo dared to raise his head a fraction, glancing up at Hux with hope. Was this it: the fall?

“Come, Ren,” Hux said as he lay back down on to ottoman. He opened his arms to coax Kylo into an embrace, his breath hot and wanting against his throat, “Pay tribute to your wicked god.”

Oh, he hoped for a soft landing.

\--

They lay together in the gazebo on the mildest night of late spring, Kylo’s head on Hux’s lap and a vaulted heaven of stars above them. In the gentle light, banks of flowers sleepily nodded their heads in some unfelt breeze; somewhere far in the trees, a nightingale sang its strange and charming song. Hux threaded his fingers idly through Kylo’s hair and smiled down at him, all roseate and lovely. His skin was so white it seemed to glow, and Kylo – carried on a cloud of laudanum and love – wondered if this was another hallucination because no earthly creature could be as beautiful as Hux, nor as happy as he was in that moment.

“Where did you come from, Kylo Ren,” Hux murmured. With a fingertip, he drew a soft line along the proud bridge of Kylo’s nose, down to his lips as though to shush him, “What forces delivered you here to me?”

Kylo shivered at the touch and grabbed Hux’s hand so that he could lay kisses on all his fingertips. What threads of the universe knitted together to carry him here? What unseen hand pulled him from a life half-forgotten and set him down on a cold and lofty mountain perch?

“Snoke,” he said. Though his heart was light, his tongue felt thick and clumsy, “Emperor Snoke gave me to you.”

“And what a fine gift you’ve made, but that’s not what I mean. Before Snoke, what was there?” Hux said, permitting Kylo his little kisses, “You never talk about it.”

Kylo held Hux’s hand against his mouth as he considered if there had been anything before Snoke. There had been a body, yes; flesh and blood and bone, but not a person. No Kylo Ren. Perhaps he had been conjured from dirt and smoke – that was certainly preferable to the truth. He closed his eyes and wished desperately that Hux might take pity and kiss him quiet instead.

“I have suffered from this malady all my life. The visions, the mania, the pain. My parents feared for me. I think they saw it as a symptom of something greater,” Kylo said slowly. It felt unfamiliar, as though he was recounting some stranger’s life, “I was still a child when they sent me away to a foreign monastery. They sought to make me well again, thought this sect could cure me – better me somehow.”

“They failed, I presume,” Hux said, if only to nudge him on.

“It was Hell in its own right. They believed in the total denial of self, the absolute repression of—everything. Senses, emotions, desires. We were to be cleansed of hate and fear, yes, but also of love and passion and happiness! We were hollowed out with flagellation and meditation,” Kylo said, and it pained him to remember it. He was a sensitive creature both of body and mind, and their scouring tactics had caused him a great deal of suffering, “Such unnatural restriction causes deformities in growing children. I became progressively worse.”

“Was it perhaps here your— _particular inclinations_ were marked in you?” Hux asked. Kylo still had his eyes closed but it sounded as if he might have been smiling.

“All over the monastery, there were these extraordinary depictions of the martyred saints, paintings and frescos of them frozen in their moment of sublime death. We were taught to meditate on their sacrifices, how their spiritual detachment from this world allowed them to go to God willingly, happily,” Kylo said. He tried to picture those much studied images but his mind was hazy and it was akin to grasping at smoke, “They all had the most wonderful expressions, those martyrs. So serene, so content. Saint Sebastian smiling beatifically at the Mauritian archer piercing his heart with an arrow—like he loved him. Like he _adored_ him. That was the lesson imparted on me, to love the one that wields the whip, and so I did. I threw myself at the feet of the fathers. I wanted to devote myself to them, not God.”

“I suppose that just made them beat you harder,” Hux said lightly, “But what of Snoke? Did he rescue you from all this?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Kylo conceded after a pause, “On the rise of the new order, Snoke’s men swept over the monastery like a wave. Snoke had in interest in the children there, something about the philosophy that shaped a person in a manner that was useful to him, though he has always been vague about it. We were asked once to come—and I did. I went to those terrible conquerors with open arms, and they took me. They wanted me. It is an incredible feeling, to be wanted when no-one ever had before.”

“And the others?”

“Dead. We razed the monastery as we left,” Kylo said. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. It was becoming harder to think, harder to speak, “My parents too - also dead, I mean. Swallowed up in the war, like as not. They resisted the last empire, they will have resisted this one too. Old fools.”

“There is no resisting the new order,” Hux murmured, brushing his knuckles across Kylo’s cheek, “You knew it even as a child. You had to submit.”

“Emperor Snoke has given me everything; my training, my education, even my name. Taught me how to use my mind as well as my sabre. It was through him I learned of Ares—my beautiful Ares. He admires the antiquity; the Iliad, the Odyssey, all the bloody Caesars of Rome,” Kylo said, turning his face to lean into the touch. He clasped at Hux’s wrist to keep him there, “And he gave the Knights to me. Or me to the Knights, I suppose, and sent us off to war.”

“What was your name before Kylo Ren?” Hux seemed to be holding his breath, or perhaps that was Kylo. Sometimes it was hard to tell.

“Ben,” he said, and knew he shouldn’t because this was what Hux did: he worked people open with a geniality that wasn’t at all his own and picked through everything that came out like a fortune teller divining guts, filing it away neatly for when it might be useful. Kylo had pointed it out once and Hux had laughed and said it was a habit he’d gleaned from his father. It was the only time that Hux had mentioned him, “Ben Solo.”

Kylo tried to open his eyes but he couldn’t pull anything into focus, and even the soft moonlight caused him discomfort. Hux was silent, silver and waiting.

“I envy them,” Kylo said. His voice was weak, and he didn’t want to talk about what there was before Kylo Ren anymore, “I envy the martyrs their blissful suffering, their adoring submission to the knife. I envy them their Roman tyrants and wild-eyed pagans.”

“Look at you,  you’re half broken on the wheel already,” Hux said softly, and all the stars in heaven seemed to gather in close to watch as he leaned down to press his lips Kylo’s, “Fear not.  I will make a martyr of love out of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More to come soon-ish, things will get 'harder' in the following chapters. All comments and concrit is welcome. 
> 
> Come say hi at [brood-mother](http://brood-mother.tumblr.com/), I really need some fandom friends.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would recommend paying particular attention to the tags from here on out, since this chapter is where we start to really earn some of them.

\--

Mother, you don’t understand;

I made Hades run to me.

He saw my bones beneath,

and offered me half his kingdom.

Do you really think I ate the fruit unwillingly?

A.M., _Persephone’s Return_

\--

 

A member of the rebellion had been apprehended in the house. The device he had rigged in the great hall was discovered before it could detonate at that afternoon’s meeting, and after an extensive search he was caught trying to flee through the woods beyond the gardens. It was unlikely he was anyone of remote import to the Rebels – perhaps even just some lone fanatic – but it was agreed that it would be prudent to interrogate him regardless.

Kylo offered his services and those of his Knights, as they had ample training in such delicate and distasteful matters. Hux refused him, intending to see to it himself – to set an example, Kylo assumed, and the idea of it thrilled him in a manner he didn’t care to consider too closely. The General’s only request was that Kylo, and Kylo alone, stood guard outside the room.

The room itself had once been a wine cellar of sorts, long since repurposed as a pantry. The supplies on the mountain had dwindled to the point the room was very near empty, and at Hux’s request Kylo had fetched down a small table and two chairs. The General carried with him a neat black doctor’s bag, the contents of which Kylo was not privy to but could imagine quite enthusiastically, and he closed the door behind him with clipped instructions that it was not to be opened by anyone but himself unless invited.

Kylo was shut out. He found himself staring at the banded wood inches from his face like it might suddenly become transparent. After a moment he turned away to face the narrow staircase that led up to the kitchens, taking up the post he’d been given. He wasn’t wholly sure what to do with himself; no-one would dare come down unbidden, and there would be no brazen rescue for the man tied to a chair somewhere behind him. Kylo kept one hand on the hilt of his sabre and the other tucked into is broad belt, if only to give them somewhere to rest. He could feel the chill from the cellar seep through his overcoat and he tried to ignore it, and the creeping morbid curiosity that came with it. Instead he focused on the halo of light around the kitchen door, which at that moment seemed as inviting and unattainable as some portal to heaven.

In China, hell was a frozen plain where demons chased the damned across lakes of ice. He felt claws at his back, breath on his neck.

Someone was talking, Kylo realised; soft, cajoling. The prisoner speaking to Hux – trying to persuade him to show mercy, or even let him go entirely. He sounded weak. Perhaps he was already aware of the futility of it all. He couldn’t hear what the man was saying, but he assumed it was something along the lines of ‘you don’t have to do this’. An attempt at appealing to his better nature, if he had one. Hux’s reaction would surprise the man: Kylo could picture it in his mind’s eye. No sneering laugh or brutal outburst, just cool indifference that was somehow worse than either. _I don’t have to_ , Kylo could almost hear him say as though the words had been whispered into his own ear, _but I will_. Perhaps he would be rolling up his sleeves as he said so, jacket discarded over the back of a chair. Perhaps he was leaning against the table, taking a callous pull from a thin cigarette like he was the only one in the room.

A shiver ran through Kylo that had little to do with the temperature. He released his sabre to reach behind him and press his hot palm to the cold door, and low moan curled around the cellar. For a brief second he thought it had come from his own parted lips, but then the pleading started. It was quiet at first, the same formless mumbling as before, but grew louder until he could make out each _please, please no_ with ease. He withdrew his hand quickly as though he had been burned and clutched it his chest, his head bowed and his expression troubled. The begging climbed to a bitten off shriek, a violent crescendo, before silence reigned again, and Kylo was left without nothing but the rush of his own blood in his ears. He turned his head to listen carefully, wondering their man had fallen insensible from the pain or if Hux had brought a premature and final end to him – but no sooner had it stopped did it all begin again.

It came in waves, this rolling rise and fall of suffering, and with each screamed peak Kylo felt the earth shift beneath his feet. He closed his eyes and braced himself against the door frame like he might suddenly pitch forward at any moment. Jealousy! He felt jealousy for the miserable creature! How low, how wretched. Kylo longed to be the object of Hux’s undivided attention, even to be at the mercy of his cruel whims. Let his misery be the General’s passing fancy! He wanted it. He deserved it.

Kylo could no longer feel the chill of the cellar, so flushed with desire was he. His cheeks were aflame, and his arousal was like a brand against his leg. He palmed himself through the thick wool of his breeches, shameless and indiscreet, his head thrown back against the door. He strained to grasp any scrap of the goings on within the chambers, but everything had fallen deadly quiet again. Nothing. Nothing! Until—

“Lord Ren,” Hux called. Kylo jumped like a scolded schoolboy caught misbehaving. Hux’s voice sounded impossibly close, as though he was standing on the other side of the door, and Kylo had the most dreadful, wonderful idea that he could somehow sense his lasciviousness and had come to punish him, “You may enter. We are finished here.”

Kylo felt rooted to the spot; all his strength had fled him, and his heart was thundering madly in his chest. He tried to compose himself, to will his hands to be steady and to turn his face to flint, but he couldn’t keep the General waiting any longer. He turned and opened the door, entering the room.

Immediately his gaze was drawn to the prisoner, slumped forward in his chair with his chin to his chest. A mop of dark curls obscured most of his face, and blood dripped sluggishly from the wet mess of his mouth. Sometime later, Kylo would realise that he was not nearly as young as he has imagined him to be but at that moment he could not focus on anything but the slack parting of his lips, and the stain spreading across the floor at his feet. In the strained light of the cellar, it looked black.

“A waste of time,” Hux said, and Kylo’s head jerked to him like it was on a piece of string. Rather than inches away from the door he was on the far side of the room, leaning against the small table as he lit a cigarette without looking up at Kylo, “Didn’t tell me a damn thing I didn’t already know.”

Hux extinguished the match with a flick of his wrist and exhaled through his nose. He seemed entirely disaffected by what had just happened, as though they were enjoying a mundanely pleasant breakfast together. The only evidence of his ministrations was a receding flush of passion in his cheeks, and a fine constellation of bloody droplets haphazardly dusted across his chest and face.

“I suppose it is peace of mind to confirm the source, as if it was ever in doubt,” Hux continued when Kylo didn’t respond. He tapped his chin thoughtfully and picked up a scrap of paper from the table behind him. He held it out to Kylo, “Here, have your Knights take him to this village. Leave him somewhere visible, make a show of it. I want those creatures to know what happens to traitors.”

Kylo said nothing, and moved not an inch. He was transfixed on Hux’s lips; by talking and smoking, the spray of blood there had been smudged. At a glance, it gave the impression he had shared a parting kiss with the prisoner, and the image felt like a hot pebble searing the palm of Kylo’s imagination. A look of annoyance passed over the General’s face.

“Well? Do as I bid you, and come fetch it,” he said tartly, flashing the paper again. An unpleasant smirk curled the corner of his lips. He lifted his chin, “You look unwell. Do you prove too delicate for this after all?”

In three strides Kylo had crossed the room before he realised he had even moved. He knocked Hux’s hand aside and pulled him into a violent, desperate embrace.

“Villain,” he gasped as he clung to the General’s bloodied lips, “Blessed, beautiful villain!”

Hux was as rigid as a statue under Kylo as he backed him against the table, the cigarette extinguished on Kylo’s greatcoat, his arms braced against his chest to hold him off as he was laid down like a maid on her wedding night. He turned his head sharply to the side to spurn Kylo’s fevered kisses, but his resistance was overpowered and broken away.

“Ren—“ he protested, a keening edge to his voice as Kylo rutted against him, “You forget yourself.”

Kylo ignored Hux’s protests as he kissed and bit at his neck and jaw with a passion that bordered on violent. In his half-craze, he pulled on the General’s fine dress shirt hard enough that it was torn open and the buttons scattered in all directions. It had the same silencing effect as a dropped, shattered glass: Hux suddenly became very still, and it was so quiet in the cellar that Kylo could hear the buttons skitter across the stone floor to their final resting place. When Hux sat up, Kylo moved away to a respectable distance, feeling acutely ashamed of how impudent he had been. His hands balled into fists as Hux stared at him, lip curled in disgust. He cuffed Kylo across the ear hard enough to leave spots dancing in his vision and then abruptly stormed out of the room, clutching his ruined shirt shut with one hand.

Kylo was left still cowed by Hux’s hand, his ear hot and ringing. He touched it gingerly as though he might find blood, but there was nothing. He didn’t know what to do. He felt as though he had suddenly been cut adrift. Slowly he turned to face the door which had been left ajar in the wake of the General’s departure. The staircase beyond was empty, dark; his fingers curled around his throbbing ear and fear twisted in his gut. If he climbed those stairs, what now would he find at the top? His own destruction, perhaps. It had never scared him before.

He leaned against the table where he had found Hux. The only sound was the slow steady drop of blood hitting the floor. He ran a hand over his face, shutting out the view of the mutilated prisoner.

Condemned men, both.

\--

Kylo confined himself to his rooms, resolutely ignoring any servants calling with meals or messages, and even the enquiries of his own Knights. To be bricked up in his quarters like some mad king held a certain amount of appeal. His laudanum supply was running low; he tried to ration it as best he could, but his nerves were frayed.

In the middle of the night there was a knock at the door. Kylo, lying fully clothed atop his bed in a sort of sulk, ignored it as he had done before. Soon the door handle began to shake as though someone was attempting to force their way in and Kylo sat up, reaching for his sabre.

“The arrogance of you, Lord Ren,” came the familiar and somewhat shrill voice from the other side, ”To presume you can lock me out of rooms in my own house!”

Kylo raised himself from his bed and crossed over to the door. He considered ignoring Hux until he left but in all honesty, he deeply desired to see him again. He opened the door by inches, “It’s not your house.”

It was dark in the hallway but Kylo saw the twist of distaste in Hux’s expression. He shoved the door open further, brushing past to come inside, “This house is under my command, along with everything and everyone in it. It is _my_ house.”

His cheeks were flushed, his hair uncharacteristically dishevelled. He looked agitated. Kylo wondered if he had been drinking, but he held his tongue. Instead he closed the door and watched the General pace the room, waiting for him to say something.

“I cannot sleep, because of you. You and your damnable perversions,” Hux said accusingly. He smoothed his hair as though Kylo had projected his thoughts across the air between them, “I permitted your bloody little martyrs but I did not think you so—so _serious_.”

“Serious? Passionate!” Kylo retorted, closing the gap. He was bold enough to grasp Hux by the arms, “And it is you that has disturbed these passions, General. You awakened a dearest dream in me in that cellar, one that has slept for too long.”

“Not I,” Hux said. He braced against Kylo as though he meant to push him away, but he didn’t.  

“Yes, you. I know it. I can feel it! It lies latent in you—or not so latent. It simmers beneath the surface. Control, and order, and cruelty! Your capacity for it is boundless, and I think you would even enjoy it; to have a man so wholly in your power. You know it too, why else would you bring me to the cellar? To see your work?” Kylo said, his voice low and urgent, “You embody my ideal.”

As Kylo spoke, Hux’s expression softened by a margin before his lip curled in a sneer, “Which is?”

“A tyrant, a beautiful tyrant, whom I love. Whom I worship.”

“And who mistreats you,” Hux said with a laugh. He shook his head and tried to move away, but found himself held fast.

“Lay me on the gridiron, pierce me with arrows, throw me to the wolves; I will suffer your horrors as if in rapture! To suffer is to live, and to suffer at the hands of the one you love is a gift,” Kylo said, his grip tightening as Hux struggled.

“Then give yourself to your Knights and their savage ilk! With the teeth of dogs on your skin, you would lose your taste for such fancies,” Hux spat.

“Never,” Kylo said, “Never, never.”

Hands found themselves around his throat; only resting, not choking. The effect was the same either way. Hux’s face was mere inches from his own as the silence between them stretched on for an age, inscrutable, thoughtful. He seemed calmer now than when he had first come in, his eyes glinting with piercing mockery, “I have warned you once already, Lord Ren. Let such thoughts lie and I will never speak of it again. We can carry on as we are, in respect and grace. Your absolute submission is a path that neither of us may want to follow.”

Kylo swallowed thickly, “So be it. Tread me underfoot on the way.”

Hux guided him into a kiss by his very neck, but it was not a violent or bruising one. It was soft, impossibly tender, the touch of his lips as light and delicate as a feather. A shiver ran through Kylo like a spark of electricity and he pressed forward seeking more. The General pulled back minutely, keeping himself just out of reach.

“Get on your knees,” he whispered. Kylo balked at the sudden turnaround, uncertain whether Hux was mocking him again.

“General—“ he began with some trepidation, and immediately all the sweetness in Hux dissipated as quickly as it had arrived.

“Disobeying me already. You’re off to a good start, Ren,” Hux said. His voice was needle-sharp, “You will regret making me ask twice.”

Kylo dropped to his knees, his cheeks beginning to burn. He felt at a loss of what to do until fingers threaded through his hair and tugged lightly. He looked up at Hux with wide eyes, seeking instruction, and was met with a mild smirk.  Kylo lowered his gaze; he ran his hands up Hux’s slim thighs to the belt that clung to his hips. He leaned forward and reverently kissed the buckle before working it open, followed by the buttons of his britches, pulling back each layer of cloth like paper on a gift or a decade of rosaries until finally there was skin on skin. He couldn’t stop the noise that escaped him as he drew Hux’s arousal into his hand, as though the flesh was hot enough to brand. He kissed the crown and timidly worked his lips along the length of it, and Hux was patient enough to let him without pulling his hair again.

It was nothing like the Eucharist as Kylo drew Hux’s cock into his mouth, he felt none of the guilt or the absolution, only lust, only love.  He marvelled at how soft, how luxurious the flesh was against his tongue; how he tasted, how he smelled, how Kylo should have shrivelled up with shame then and there, but he didn’t. It was the most divine and pure form of submission, he decided. It was practically sacred, a sort of worship in its own right. He tried to convey that with his lips without saying a word.

“That’s it. Good boy,” Hux murmured, causing Kylo to open his eyes again and glance up. The General’s face was flushed but he looked devastatingly composed. He brushed a thumb across Kylo’s hollowed cheek, causing him to swallow down a whimper, “Beautiful boy.”

The way the General held his gaze like so made Kylo begin to tremble, and when the thumb on his cheek came to trace his lips, the seal around Hux’s cock, he thought he would shake himself apart entirely. The digit pressed on further, pushing into Kylo’s mouth alongside, stretching his abused jaws further. It found his tongue and trapped it, holding it down as Hux took his pleasure freely; Kylo whimpered at the violation, and spent himself untouched.

When Hux realised what had happened, he made a disgusted noise and pulled Kylo off him by his hair. He ground the toe of his boot against the growing wet spot on the front of Kylo’s britches, causing him to gasp and squirm weakly in his grip. He was sensitive to the point pain and pleasure seemed one and the same, and all he knew was that it was too much. Hux held Kylo in place as he stroked himself off with tight, fast pulls just inches from his face.

“Eyes up. Up here,” he murmured, tugging Kylo’s hair lightly to keep his attention, “Look at me.”

Kylo was struggling to focus between the hand pulling his hair and the boot between his legs; all he really wanted was to close his eyes and sink his mouth around Hux once again, but he was not permitted. He blinked up at the General, meeting his cool and hungry gaze with pleading, parted lips; Hux anointed those lips, Kylo’s nose and chin too. Some landed on his chest, feeling hot enough to scald his skin. When Hux released him, Kylo sagged forward, saliva and spend dripping from his chin as they both struggled to catch their breath again.

Hux bruskly tucked himself back in his breeches, and it was as though the spell had been broken and Kylo’s senses returned to himself. He wiped the mess from his face as best as he could and moved as though to stand up, but Hux stopped him with a disapproving noise.

“I think not,” he said. He pointed to his boots, and Kylo saw a string of pearly white marring the toe, “You aren’t finished yet.”

Something crawled up Kylo’s spine as he nodded, bent his head to the floor. He felt his own lashes on his cheek as he lowered his gaze, closed his eyes as if in prayer. His hands clasped the General’s slim ankle as carefully cleaned the mess, ending each short swipe of his tongue with a devoted kiss to the black leather. The taste was both familiar and new, and if he had ever been to the ocean he imagined that is what it would have felt like on his tongue - salt, and something more. Something bigger.

Kylo kept going long after the toe was clean, to the ankle and up the sweep of his calf. He was weeping by the time he was finished, his face pressed to Hux’s thigh. Finger tangled tenderly in his hair, scratching his scalp, little pinpricks of light.

Ares had been wrong in one thing: fealty and duty were divine, not dour.

\--

The morning after Hux’s visit, Kylo received a note of instruction. It read that they would not be seeing each other for several days, and if it was possible he should leave the house until then. Kylo called his Knights to him; the ones that had accompanied him up the mountain were the ones Kylo trusted least to operate appropriately without his guidance, but he had neglected them as he had neglected most of his duties since arriving. That evening the three of them rode out from the mansion together to attend to what business they could in the isolated circumstances, and Kylo tried to not to stew over the true meaning of the note.

The campaign was short and bloody, but ultimately effective. In two nights, they managed to locate and eliminate what was left of the local resistance cell that had been harrying their roads. In total there were less than thirty men spread between two different villages, but they had discovered more explosives, more plans. If their kind had been left as they were, there was a chance they could have become a festering sore for the mountain base. Kylo did everything he could to prevent that happening, and showed little mercy in doing so. Kuna, the Knight that was with Riktor, lost another finger in the fight and Kylo wanted to bring it back to Hux in a silver box like a cat with a mouse.

Look at what we did for you, he wanted to cry, look at what we would give for you! For you!

\--

Hux was not at the mansion when they returned, and Kylo felt spurned. When questioned by the brass about his off-record actions, he lied and told the Brigadier-General his orders had come from Emperor Snoke himself. Clera Nell didn’t seem to care either way - she was more interested in ghoulishly pressing him for more details on every blow, every kill, and he resented her for taking Hux’s gift and making it her own.

A carriage came and went in the night. Kylo deigned not to let his hopes rise as such a thing was not uncommon; officers, supplies, and important correspondence often came under what little protection the night offered - sure more since he’d helped to clear the roads for good. Still, he found himself lying morosely in bed, staring at the shabby door and willing forth a knock from it.

His desire did little to assuade the prickle of fear he felt when the knock _did_ finally come, so light it might not even have woken him if he had been asleep. Kylo opened the door to find no presence there but the moonlight, and the faintest trace of tobacco smoke. It seemed to beckon him, unseen fingers curling in the dark, calling him forth. He took the vial from his pocket, placed several drops under his tongue, and followed it.

By the time Kylo reached the final staircase leading to Hux’s quarters, he felt as though he floated up it, carried by the smoke that lead him there to a stoic wooden door. A single shard of light knifed through the gloom, coming from the keyhole like a lighthouse calling him to shore. He stood before the door for a long, empty minute, half expecting it to open on its own before he gave in and knocked thrice. Each knock seemed deafening, but the voice that answered was soft as silk.

“Come,” was all it said.

Kylo entered with as much composure as he could muster. The room that served as an entrance hall to the quarters was dark, rectangular; an open door led to an adjacent room where the firelight came from, and where Hux would be waiting. With solemn steps, he approached as though approaching the altar.

It was stiflingly hot in the main room. The windows were shut and the curtains drawn, and the fire had been built high. Hux stood by the hearth, turned to face into the flames. He wore a scarlet kazabaika trimmed with ermine, but seemed wholly unaffected by the heat. The fire of his own hair had been tempered by the application of fine white powder like snow, his skin too. He wore a diadem of plain gold, and in his hands he held a short stout whip, the kind used on mastiffs and other heavy-headed hunting dogs.

“You came,” Hux said, his tone cool, ambivalent, as though he cared little whether Kylo had bothered to show or not.

“You called,” Kylo said once he had found his tongue.

“I went shopping,” he went on, casually gesturing to himself with the whip, “Does it please you? Come here and tell me it pleases you.”

Kylo was rooted to the spot. Indeed it pleased him - and terrified. In his costume, Hux looked like a beautiful marble statue given life and dressed by adoring hands. Kylo could scarcely draw his eyes from the mean little whip he carried.

“Ren,” Hux insisted, a warning. He pointed at the floor in front of his feet.

“Yes, General,” Kylo said, with enough presence of mind to start moving again. He gladly took to his knees where Hux had shown him, “Yes, it pleases me greatly.”

Hux smiled as though the praise had genuine value to him and he wasn’t just toying with Kylo, of which Kylo was fully aware. Hux caressed his cheek with the handle of the whip, drawing it down his neck to push the loose collar of his shirt aside with remarkable gentleness.

“Remove this.”

This time, Kylo did not need to be told twice, and tossed the flimsy garment aside. It was little relief from the heat; a bead of sweat ran down the center of his chest and Hux chased it with the whip, and then brought it back to Kylo’s mouth. He kissed the whip as he felt was right, and parted his lips for it when it pressed further, his eyes fluttering shut at the tang of salt and new leather. Hux drew back and lightly struck him across the face with it, hard enough to sting but not to leave any lingering mark.

“Did I hurt you?” Hux asked after a moment, the slightest hint of trepidation creeping into him since their rendezvous had begun.

“Even if you had, I would thank you for it a thousand times,” Kylo said. He stared unwavering up at his General, trying to control the pace of his breathing that threatened to run away from him, “Strike me again, if it gives you pleasure.”

“It doesn’t give _me_ pleasure,” Hux said, and his constant back-and-forth would be the death of Kylo, whose nerves were already so frayed.

“Then I beg you to whip me, or else I will go mad!” Kylo pleaded, bringing his shaking hands to grab at Hux’s legs. Hux swatted his desperate grasp away with a curl of his lip and two more little slaps from the whip.

“I think you already are.”

“Then make me sane! Thrash this sickness from me.”

Hux took a half-step back from Kylo; if he moved any further away, he would be in danger of catching himself on the fire, “You only care for this because it is a game to you. Were I a man who really beat his subordinates, you would be horrified. This play-acting makes a fool of both of us.”

“Then stop acting,” Kylo insisted softly. He shook his head, “If you love me, mistreat me tonight.”

There was an uncanny pause. Hux stared down at Kylo with a look that could have pierced his heart, “Ren, I warn you one last time--”

“Do it!” Kylo exclaimed and threw himself prostrate at Hux’s feet, kissing them, “Oh, _please_.”

“If I love you,” a strange countenance came over Hux at that moment and he suddenly looked very serious, as if every doubt he held evaporated at once. Even his posture changed as he considered the whip he held with contracted brows, “Very well. If this is what you desire - what you really, truly desire - then be now my slave and know what it means to be delivered into the hands of a tyrant.”

He delivered a sudden swift kick to Kylo’s gut that sent him sprawling with the wind knocked out of him; Kylo curled in on himself, his eyes watering as he struggled for breath. Hux took a step forward, cracking the whip against his tall boots.

“Get up!” he barked, and shoved Kylo down again with a foot between his shoulder blades when he tried to rise to his feet, “Not like that: on your hands and knees, like a dog.”

Kylo obeyed and raised himself on unsteady arms, his head hanging low and his lips parted in anticipation. The first blow landed dead center, a sharp strike that curled around his ribs. The blows that followed fell in quick succession, not giving Kylo any time to savour the white hot heat that burned along each welt. More stung his arms, his still-clothed thighs, though his thin breeches did little to insulate him. He couldn’t help the cries that Hux’s whip pulled from him; he felt enraptured, felled wholly by a dozen strikes from a beautiful hand.

Hux stopped when Kylo began to sob, overwhelmed by pain and gratitude. He could hardly believe the General had permitted him this favour - he had seen Kylo’s wretchedness and went from amused, to disgusted, to interested, and now he was trying so seriously to satisfy his strange lusts.

“I have half a mind to whip you until you lose your senses entirely,” Hux said. His voice sounded tight but Kylo didn’t dare lift his head from the floor to see the expression on his face, “But enough for today. Get up.”

Kylo sat back on his heels, wincing as the welts on his back lit up. He wiped the dampness from his cheeks with the back of his hand, and reach to take a hold of Hux’s hand so as to kiss it.

“Impudence,” Hux sneered, and shoved him away with the toe of his boot, “Get up. Get out of my sight.”

\--

Kylo awoke to find himself face down on the fire-side rug in his own quarters, half-dressed and barely sensible. How much had had been reality, and how much had been a dream? The grey light of dawn filtered through his thin curtains, filling the room with a weak, timid light that hurt his eyes nonetheless. He closed them again and mentally took stock of his body; his head ached, his stomach ached, his back and shoulders felt like he had been flayed and rolled in salt. He could feel each and every individual blow as though it had been branded on him, and to know that hand that had dealt it-- oh, love. Oh, dreams!

Such cruelty was a kindness, a gift, a blessing. He picked himself off the floor, and crawled into bed proper. Every minute movement knifed at him, but the pain left him feeling clean and warm. Kylo was surer then than ever before that he loved Hux, and would do anything he ever asked of him.

He smiled softly, bone-heavy with contentment.

\--

That day went much as most days did at the mountain base, with a regular parade of meetings and dreadfully important tete-a-tetes and all the other things Kylo was only marginally involved in. Ever the consummate professional, the General went about his duties as though nothing at all had happened in the night, though he did seem distracted and slightly more irritable than usual. Kylo tried not to moon over him like the love-sick fool he had been rendered, if only because he knew Hux hated undue public displays of affection while he was working, but he did not miss the way the General’s gaze caught on him any time he winced or sighed in pain as his shirt stuck to his raw skin.

After dinner, they walked through the gardens together. The evening was still, balmy, with the first stars appearing in the still-bright sky. Hux remained reticent until they reached their little gazebo by the pond where they were out of sight from the main house, at which point he took Kylo by the arm and pulled him around to face him.

“You must try to forget what happened yesterday,” he said. He held onto Kylo by the elbows, his thumbs rubbing circles on his upper arms. It made the lashes on his shoulders ache, “It was ugly of me, and I have shamed myself. I have fulfilled your mad wish, now let us go on as we ought to: happy, and with good reason.”

Kylo frowned at the certain impatience in Hux’s voice, and yet another heel-turn. He felt like he was being pulled taut between two points where Hux would not let him rest at either, “Are you angry with me?”

Hux’s expression hardened, “Why? Do you wish me to punish you again?”

“If that is what would please you.”

“You are incorrigible,” Hux hissed, and began walking again. Kylo followed and caught him by the wrist.

“No, I am in _love_ ,” he said, and tried to drive all the conviction he could into the words, “What happened last night was not ugly nor shameful, and I cannot ever forget it. It has marked my mind as much as you marked my skin; you are my master, and I am your slave. Do whatever you want with me, whatever your caprice suggests, and it can be nothing more than a gesture of love returned tenfold.”

“And what am I to do when I’ve ruined you, and you hate me for it? What am I to do when you have made a savage out of me, and then you decide you have lost your taste for the whip?” Hux demanded, rounding on Kylo, “Such passions last for what, a month? Two? The price of what you ask it too high, Ren. I want more from us than a game of dog and chain.”

Kylo didn’t shrink away from Hux, though he found it hard to meet his eye, “You will have more. You will have me, until such time as you no longer desire me. Only you might break these bonds.”

“Swear it. Swear it to me, and to your god,” Hux said, gesturing to the statue of Ares on the far side of the pond. The order both thrilled and scared Kylo; a chill ran through him and settled like a lead weight in his stomach. He stared at the skyward point of Ares’ spear, and wonder how Hux’s demand felt just as lethal.

“They are one in the same, are they not?” Kylo said, his lips barely moving. An impatient noise from the General brought his gaze back to him, and he wet his lips as though nervous, “Then I swear it, on my honour and on whatever god you choose for me: I belong to you. I will be your unrestricted property, your pledged knight, until such time you see fit to dispose of me. All I ask of you is that you love me, and let me be the unburdening of all your capriciousness, your cruelty, and your wretchedness. Will you permit it?”

"I permit it."

Hux kissed him then with a savagery that had - until that moment - been unknown to him. Immediately it set all his delicate senses in dizzying disarray, and all he he could do was cling helplessly to the General as he sought to slay him with his lips. Kylo shed his fears, his agonies, even his thoughts like clothes in the boudoir but lingering above it all was the feeling that with this one kiss, he had made a pact with the devil.

It only made him love him more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the kind comments so far, I treasure all of them. 
> 
> Btw, this story has a continuously updated [pinterest aesthetic board](https://uk.pinterest.com/broodmotherr/novel-sic-semper-tyrannis/), if that's anyone's thing. It helps me think.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hux begins to settle into his new role perhaps a little too well.
> 
> (This chapter is only partially beta'd so please excuse the inevitable mistakes.)

“We are jealous, as is our God. [...] We prefer one of Holbien’s meagre, pallid virgins, which is wholly ours, to an antique Venus who loves Anchises today, Paris tomorrow, Adonis the day after - no matter how divinely beautiful she is. And if nature triumphs in us so that we give our whole glowing, passionate devotion to such a person, their serene joy of life appears to us as something demonic and cruel, and we read into our happiness a sin which we must expiate.”

 

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, _Venus in Furs_

 

\--

 

Count Warwick Kildare arrived on the mountain like a summer storm: with heat, and a bruising suddenness. He cut a fine athletic figure for a man of somewhat advanced years, broad in shoulder and strong in arm, with an upright posture that might as well been carved in stone. He had a beard that was well groomed to a point, and steel-grey hair pulled back in a severe que; Kylo though he looked brutish, but everyone else at the base seemed to find him utterly charming - the General included.

Hux welcomed the Count in person, and seemed to very nearly simpered when the man pawed at him with hands like dinner plates. Kildare wore an expression like he wanted to eat Hux alive; he touched him like he intended to. It sent Kylo into the most exquisitely foul mood.

“You shouldn’t let him grope you like so in public,” he fumed as soon as he had a chance to be alone with Hux later that day. He paced the floor in the General’s study while Hux watched him from his armchair with great disinterest, “It’s unseemly, and disrespectful.”

“He did not _grope_ me, Ren; he greeted me with an embrace, as is his way. He might have done the same to you had you not immediately resigned yourself to sulking,” Hux said dryly, like he was already bored of the conversation before it had even started.

“You certainly didn’t seem to mind his ‘way’,” Kylo sniffed, pausing his pacing to glower over his shoulder at Hux like he’d said something quite provocative, though it merely earned him a raised brow.

“And if I didn’t? The Count is a loyal and valuable supporter of the Order, and a handsome fellow to boot. If he was to strike my fancy-- well, I am free to do as I please, am I not?”

“How so - do you already love me no longer?” Kylo stammered, his petulance already fading in favor of stuttering fear.

“I love you and only you, as it stands,” Hux said with soft insistence, “But perhaps I still intend to have the Count pay court to me.”

“General!” Kylo took to his knees beside Hux’s chair, and took his by the arm beseechingly.

“Oh, give me peace already,” Hux said, prying Kylo’s fingers from his sleeve, “Slaves are bound, masters are not - isn’t that what you begged from me? Now while you are down there, do as slaves do and take off my boots for me. I am tired, and quite done with today’s business.”

Kylo did as he was instructed with only minimal reluctance. It was a chore to take off Hux’s tall boots but there was a strange intimacy to it that he found compelling. He didn’t rise after the task was done, and leaned his heavy head against the General’s knee. Hux smiled favourably down on him, twining his fingers gently through the thick black locks he claimed to love the most. The tenderness of the touch stung Kylo like needles, and tears began to gather.

“You are more heartless than I thought,” he said, resuming his dreadful sulk. Hux laughed.

“Heartless?” he repeated, amused. He cupped Kylo’s cheek sweetly, “Ren, I haven’t done anything yet, not the slightest thing, and already you are calling me heartless. How do you expect me to become the despot of your dreams if I am allowed only to be little more than your mean-spirited wife who lightly canes you on a Sunday as though you were an unruly child.”

“Perhaps you take my dreams too seriously,” Kylo said, turning his face to press against Hux’s thigh.

“Seriously? Passionately!” Hux retorted in a mocking tone, “You asked for this Ren, you asked for my capriciousness, so you ought to be grateful. There are far _worse_ things I could do than flirt harmlessly with a stranger.”

The manner in which Hux said it made Kylo’s stomach turn, since it sounded so much more like a promise than a threat. He would much rather Hux just slapped him across the face already and be done with it. This sudden fancy felt unfair, and too much of a turn from the General’s still-fresh concerns over the longevity of their coupling. His unhappy silence only seemed to irritate the General further.

“Honestly, I cannot stand to even look at you while you are in one of your ugly moods,” he said, brushing Kylo off of him like his touch offended.

“Are you going to punish me?” Kylo asked, daring to sound halfway hopeful. Was this what Hux was playing?

“Worse. I’ll send you away,” Hux said, and when Kylo began to protest, he kicked at him, “Out! Get out! Don’t even think about crossing my sight again until you have pulled yourself together.”

\--

Kylo thought it best to wait until he was called upon to return to Hux, and though he suffered every moment of their separation on such terms, it lasted only until the following morning. He entered the General’s quarters and was disappointed to find him already finishing breakfast without him. Understanding this was to be yet further punishment, Kylo waited silently by the door until Hux bid him come in.

The General dabbed his mouth with a cloth napkin which he then folded neatly on his plate; he nodded for Kylo to approach, and held out a slip of paper between two fingers.

“Take this to Count Kildare, and don’t presume to read it,” he said mildly, “Bring his response at once.”

Kylo took the note, and was instantly brought back to the scene in the cellar when they had repeated the very same action, watched on by a dead man. Knowing he was dismissed, Kylo left promptly and tried not to think of the spectre in the room. The slip of paper felt like it was burning his fingers with every step he took towards the guest wing but he only clenched it tighter in his fist like he was afraid he might lose it. All night he had been plagued by ugly dreams of Hux with the Count, scenes of illicit encounters with his Ares submitting to that brute, coy and flat on his back.

Were they really just dreams, or did Hux look a little tired at breakfast? Was his hair dishevelled? Did his stiff high collar hide more than just the pale skin of his neck? Kylo quickened his pace as though trying to outrun the insidious thoughts. He was practically running by the time he reached the corridor leading to the Count’s quarters, but still the doubts followed like flies.

Kylo took a moment before he approach the door, standing with his back against the wall, a hand to his mouth as he remembered his breathing techniques. He scolded himself severely for such lack of self-control; it was something he had always struggled with, as Emperor Snoke was quick to remind him almost constantly, but it seemed to only become harder the longer he stayed on the mountain. Once he was sure he at least appeared composed, Kylo rapped sharply on the Count’s door.

There was no response at first, and Kylo was tempted to turn heel and go back to Hux with an apologetic shrug, but he could sense Kildare was inside and he didn’t dare disobey so flagrantly. He knocked again with more urgency, and the door wrenched open before his knuckles had even left the wood a second time. The Count seemed to have been disturbed in the midst of dressing; he had his britches and boots on, but not yet much else. His steel-shard hair was loose around his ears in a way some might have found rather fetching, though Kylo was pointedly unimpressed. Kildare had clearly been expecting someone else; he did a poor job of hiding his disappointment.

“Lord Ren,” he said, his voice a rumble as he eyed Kylo up and down. Kylo could smell the reek of cigar smoke coming from the room behind him after only one night, and curled his lip at it. The Count took it as a sign to dispense with formalities, “Do you need something?”

Kylo didn’t respond, merely held out the slip of paper Hux had given him, “The General wishes your response immediately.”

Kildare took it, read it in a glance, and much to Kylo’s great displeasure, the Count suddenly seemed amused. He slipped the note into his pocket, “Of course. Tell him I greatly look forward to it.” 

The door was shut once again before Kylo could even acknowledge him, and if he had his sabre at that moment, he might have been inclined to ram it clean through in response - perhaps the very reason why Hux had forbidden him from carrying it in the house any longer. A withering glare had to suffice, and Kylo turned heel to bring news back to the General. 

\--

The note had, of course, been an invitation to lunch with the General. Hux bid Kylo also stay, which brought both relief and dread. Kylo was the one to set the table for three in the General’s study where they usually took their meals together, and he was also the one sent to answer the door when there was a knock upon it. Their esteemed guest looked utterly impeccable in a sharp charcoal grey get up; he had an unlit cigarrillo clenched between his teeth and a bottle of wine in one hand. With the other, he shoved his jacket at Kylo - who took it with seething reluctance - and then waved him aside. 

“Warwick, fashionably late as ever,” Hux said, standing to greet the Count like he didn’t loathe tardiness in all aspects of life. He kissed him once on each cheek and it made Kylo’s skin crawl. 

“Better late than never,” the Count said, gladly leaning into the General’s attention.

They took their seats, veritably tete-a-tete as Kylo hung the Count’s jacket up properly; when he returned to the table, he was dismayed to find his own place setting had been stealthily stolen away. He stood behind the chair in which he would have sat, if his invitation had not apparently been revoked. He looked to the General.

“Well?” Hux nipped, somehow already impatient with him, “Don’t just stand there, ring for lunch at once.“

Kylo’s stomach turned and sank as he cottoned on to Hux’s little game, and he did as he was instructed with a growing coldness. As they waited, the General and the Count made playful conversation; Hux laughed more than he had in a week, and Kylo despised Kildare for it.

“I say, Tiggy: there’s quite the storm gathering on your man’s brow there,” the Count said, and stroked his pointed beard slyly, “Its most off putting. Can you not send him away already?”

“Pay Ren no mind,” Hux said, “That is just his manner. He can hardly help it.”

The Count made a tart noise, and Kylo had to bite his tongue to stop himself from speaking out of turn. To be spoken to unkindly was one thing; to be spoken about as though he was not even in the room was another thing entirely. He served the food in sullen silence when it arrived. Kildare clicked his fingers to catch his attention and jabbed a finger at the bottle of wine he had brought. It was a most beautiful crimson red, no doubt some obscenely valuable vintage, but Kylo knew little of wine so he served it dutifully and without comment. He filled the Count’s glass first, and then Hux’s. The General twitched his hand away, causing Kylo to spill a little on the table.

“You clumsy ape,” Hux admonished with a sharp tongue, and delivered a sharper blow across Kylo’s cheek with an open palm. Kylo kept his head bowed and blinked away the stinging tears, bottle still clutched in his graceless hands.

“Again, there you stand like a simpleton. Must I instruct you on everything? Clean it up. Quickly now,” Hux said, but when Kylo grabbed for a cloth napkin, he slapped him again, “Don’t soil things needlessly.”

Kylo felt very much like the ape he had been named as he looked about himself helplessly for whatever else he might use instead. When he glanced down at his own jacket sleeve, Hux gave an impatient sigh and suddenly seized him by a fistful of hair. He forced Kylo’s face down to the tabletop with a strength that surprised him, and in his thrashing he managed to knock over his unseated chair.

“Surely even you understand now,” Hux said, a hand on the back of Kylo’s neck to keep him down. Kylo gritted and bared his teeth against the varnished wood, but once he realised that Hux truly would not release him, he gradually went slack in his grip. His lips parted, and gently, meekly, he lapped up the spilled wine. It was rich cassis on his lips, and the shame of it made him want to retch.

“Oh, how awkward,” the Count tittered behind his own glass, and Kylo wrenched himself upright as soon as he was permitted to. His cheeks were burning as straightened himself out, deliberately avoiding making eye contact with either men. He resumed his position like any good servant might, waiting quietly for further instruction as though nothing at all had happened. In his heart and in his head, he had strangled Kildare with his bare hands a thousand times over, knowing his humiliation was for his amusement.

He felt the heat of Hux’s heavy gaze on him for a long moment, drinking him up, and then it was gone; the two men carried on their meal in peace and good humor, as if Kylo had never been there in the first place.

\--

Kylo blew through the mansion like a raging bull on the way back to his quarters. He pulled paintings from the peeling walls, smashed their gilt frames on the floor. He up-ended spindly-legged side tables, and shattered whatever ornaments hadn’t already been looted. The corridors were tellingly empty of servants and personnel alike; he could practically hear the whispers of warning running through the walls like mice. He wanted to tear through the plasterboard and catch them, feel brittle little bones break under his fingers.

Kylo had pledged himself to Hux because Hux was devastating, beautiful, worthy. To be paraded and humiliated like a circus monkey for any passing swine was total betrayal, and yet-- and yet! The way it had felt, the look in the General’s eyes after he had lapped up the wine and the Count laughed. It had been utterly devilish, or perhaps divine. Kylo felt like he was burning up from the inside. He didn’t know what to do with himself.

In his room with the curtains drawn, he drank as much laudanum as his empty stomach could handle. He brought most of it back up, and tried again before crawling into bed. Kylo slithered over the lip of oblivion and sunk through the feather mattress, let himself be sucked down and down to somewhere he didn’t have to think or rage.

\--

He opened his eyes to total darkness. He couldn’t tell whether he had been blinded or if there was simply a complete absence of light. For some reason, neither option seemed to particularly worry him. There was a sense he had been there before. In the dark, there was a rasping, grating sound like stone on stone, and a whisper of something much softer. He reached out, groping blindly, and his fingers brushed fur so soft and fine it came from no animal he’d ever known. A cool hand took hold of his wrist and pulled him closer, and he pressed his face to the fur and the inhumanly hard body beneath it.

More hands came, far more than one man could have, and they petted him, stroked his hair, his back, his thighs. The anger and humiliation he held on to began to melt away under their soothing touch. He wanted to weep, wanted to sigh for the love of it because it had been maddeningly too long since he’d last seen Ares; he craned his head upwards, turning his face from side to side as he sought unyielding stone kisses that never came. Something dripped onto his lips, and unthinking, he licked it; the taste of salt and sorrow. At first Kylo thought it was tears and he threw his arms around the neck of the one holding him - oh, what god could cry! And then he realised as more began to rain on his face, running down his cheeks and over his lips, that it was not tears, but blood.

Kylo tried to pull away in horror, but a dozen marble hands held him in place. Cold fingers bruised his flesh and pried his jaws open, filling his mouth with more blood. It was all he could taste, all he could smell as it poured down his throat in great gluts. He tried to cry out but only succeeded in aspirating, and with lungs burning and tears streaming down his face he realised that it had changed once more. It was wine. Red, acidic, and roast-berry rich.

Kylo choked.

\--

When he opened his eyes for the final time, Kylo realised that he was still in his quarters and not some unknown hell-pit - though at that moment, they felt vaguely similar. He had vomited at some point during the dream, and he felt aching and weak all over. With lead-boned disgust, he washed himself and changed the bedding, and it was only then he noticed a note had been slipped beneath his door. He knew what it would be but rushed to read it anyway.

An invitation to Hux’s quarters, of course - not unlike the one Count Kildare received, or so Kylo imagined. He crushed the paper in his fist and considered tossing it in the fireplace, defiantly ignoring the summons as some sort of petty act of revenge, but he didn’t. In all honesty, he was too tired to stir up more spite and vinegar in himself, and his dream had left him deeply unsettled. He longed for the General’s control to set things to right, whether he drew him close to kiss him or beat him. He unfolded the note, smoothed the creases out of it, and put it carefully in his trunk with every other thing Hux had ever given to him

Kylo made sure he was clean and at least half presentable before he left his rooms like he was fleeing the scene of a crime.

\--

He didn’t know exactly what time it was as he moved through the maze of corridors and staircases that led to Hux’s quarters. There seemed to be a curious lack of clocks in the house, but it must have been after midnight since it was perfectly dark outside. There was light coming from the keyhole of Hux’s rooms but there was no guarantee the man himself was still awake. Kylo hesitated - would seemingly ignoring the summons invite more ire than waking him? He was not entirely convinced, but the selfish and needy child in him was already opening the door with trepidation.

A wall of heat pushed against Kylo as he came into the small entrance hall and shut the door behind him softly. It wicked away the air from his lungs, and he never understood how Hux could have the fire stacked so high in the middle of summer. It was positively stifling, and he already wished to divest all his clothes right there in the hallway.

“Ren? Is that you?” Hux’s voice had a curious sing-song quality to it that told Kylo the bottle of wine at lunch likely had not been his last of the day. He stepped into the main room, following its beckons. Hux was reclining on his favourite chaise lounge, nestled among heaped and luxuriant furs. He was wearing a short silk robe of brilliant peacock blue, heavily embroidered with flowers and fruits, tied about the waist with a green sash. His legs were bare, and it was apparent he wore nothing beneath his robe. Kylo felt his blood begin to rise already at the sight of him, “You have kept me waiting.”

“I was asleep,” Kylo said. Hux looked like a prince, curled in his silk and furs as he was, and Kylo had never felt more like an awkward and churlish peasant in his life. He approach him and knelt on the floor; Hux drew him closer, encouraged him to rest his head upon his knee. He carded his fingers through his dark, tangled hair and didn’t scold him for being unable to resist the urge to run his hands along those graceful legs.

“It was a long day for you. I understand,” Hux said. His voice was as soft as his touch, and Kylo let his eyes close and the tension slowly seep from his shoulders, “You must know how difficult it is for me to treat you like that, yes? It hurts me as much as it hurts you, and I am sorry for it.”

“You did it for him,” Kylo said, turning his head slightly to look up at Hux. He wished he could have stopped the hurt from creeping into his voice, he loathed to sound like such an accusing child.

“I did it for us. For the empire. It would appear Count Kildare was sufficiently _entertained,_ and has agreed to petition his circles to help fund our little war machine, since military coffers alone likely won’t stretch so far. He may be a jackanape but he is a very wealthy and influential man,” Hux said. There was a pause that seemed much less kind, “And I did it for you, because you begged it of me. I see you, Ren. I know you feel better for it now.”

There was a grain of truth in that which Kylo did not wish to recognise, so he kept his tongue pressed to the back of his teeth. Hux’s affection now was like the sweetest salve, having been denied it earlier. He traced the hem of the silk robe with a single finger, and it felt as smooth as water, “A gift?”

“Yes, from him,” Hux said, and he was smirking now. He took Kylo’s hand and guided it beneath the hem; the skin of his inner thigh was soft enough to make the silk feel like coarse-spun wool, “And here I am, wearing it with you while Kildare has packed up and left the mountain altogether. You win, Lord Ren, and what a prize I make.”

Kylo lifted his head and sought sweet kisses from Hux to match the General’s sweet mood, but instead of kind anodyne, he was given fire. Hux pressed into him like the heat when he had opened the door, pouring over him, stealing away his breath. He bit at his mouth with a sort of giddy desire that Kylo didn’t know how to respond to, other than earnestly, and when he tried to take the General’s arousal in hand, he was stopped.

“Tonight--” Hux began, and moved Kylo’s hand back down again, guiding it between his legs. Kylo was at a loss as to what to, this in itself was new to him. When he found the General to already be slick and open, he was wounded and tried to pull away - oh betrayal, surely! - but Hux stopped him once again with a shake of his head, another biting kiss, “Just me. Only me. You kept me waiting, Ren. I was waiting for you.”

He pushed Kylo’s fingers inside of himself, and Kylo couldn’t help the sound that escaped from his lips, one that Hux tried to smother with his own. Velvet warmth, a sort of surreal softness that put Kylo in mind of the fur in his dream, and the disbelief that he was permitted to trespass in somewhere so secret, so sacred.

“Do you wish to know what I thought of as I pleasured myself? I thought of you,” Hux whispered against his ear as he leaned into Kylo, sliding from the chaise lounge onto his lap, driving him flat on his back as he settled over him like a lion over a kill, “I thought of the way you looked at Kildare over lunch today, how you didn’t care for his power or his wealth or support - one word from me and you would have cut him down where he sat. Would you have done that? Would you have done that for me?”

Kylo nodded mutely as he struggled to piece his mind back together, as Hux’s words and body and touch had sent every part of himself scattered across the floor. He pulled uselessly at Hux’s sash, tried to reach between his legs again, “Anything. I would do anything for you. Please, just let me--”

Hux pushed his hand away, “Tell me why. I want to hear you say it.”

“Because I love you,” Kylo said, trying again, “I adore you!”

This time Hux pinned his wrist to the floor in a grip that threatened to be painful, “ _Why?_ ”

“Because I’m yours! I belong to you, only you,” Kylo gasped. He thought he might go mad if he couldn’t touch him, “Hux, please.”

This time Hux seemed satisfied with the answer. He straddled Kylo’s hips and sat back, releasing his wrist. With a languid abandonment, he undid the sash that held his robe together, parted the shining fabric slowly as if unwrapping a most precious gift, revealing inch by beautiful inch the perfect frosted planes of his body. He was stark white contrasted against the vivid colours, unscarred, untouched as fresh fallen snow; he slipped the robe from his shoulders, let it catch coquettishly at his elbows.

Kylo could not long speak, no longer think. Hux had never been revealed to him in his entirety before, not all at once like so, and he had never seen anything so devastating in all his life. To see him so debauched when he was naturally so composed-- Kylo thought he might lose his senses entirely when Hux tore open his britches, his expression one of hunger as he drew Kylo’s cock into his hand.

“All of you. Your power, you sabre, even your Knights,” Hux said, a sort of manic edge to his voice as he began to stroke Kylo, “Say it.”

“Yours, yours entirely!” Kylo swore and pushed aside the pang of guilt he felt, for what would his Knights think of being promised away in such a moment? Where he went, they followed, and as such they would follow him down the dark well of love surely without hesitation. Kylo arched his hips into Hux’s touch, which in the blazing heat of the room felt cool as stone.

Hux surged forward to kiss him again, and as he did so he reach between his legs to hold Kylo in place so that when he pulled back, he began to sink languorously down onto him. If Hux was in any discomfort, it showed only in the crease of his brow, the slight thinning of his lips. His short nails dug into the swell of Kylo’s breast as he canted his hips, trying to find a rhythm of sorts, and the blunt pain of it was ten little kisses to his skin. Kylo tried to grab onto Hux’s hips like a drowning man grabbing for a rope, and found his hands pushed to the floor by his head and held there. The message was clear: this was for the General, and the General alone. His participation was not required, beyond being used as a toy.

He shuddered bone-deep, his fingers curling in his own hair. Let him live as a toy then. Let him die as one. He would die happy, at least.

“And the Emperor--” Hux went on, even as his eyes were closed. He ducked his head, suppressing a moan, “If my will went against Snoke’s, with whom would you side?”

Kylo gritted his teeth with great reluctance to even answer, feeling pinched in an impossible choice, “Treason. Treason to even ask.”

Hux opened his eyes, hazy in the low light. The hands that were on Kylo’s broad chest crawled to his neck, where long fingers made a perfect noose, “Coward. Tell me.”

Even without fingers at his throat, Kylo might have choked on the words. He felt cut, pulled; Snoke was his emperor, and the man who had given him everything had had in this world, from his sabre to his very name. It had not been done for love or kindness, Kylo had no grand ideas that the Emperor had raised him up to be anything more than a weapon, but it was still something he did not take lightly. He would be nothing without him.

The longer his silence stretched, the harder the hands on his throat squeezed. He could feel the frantic pounding of his heart as a siren throb in his head. His vision blurred, whether from tears or lack of oxygen, he could not tell. Hux was still riding him, his teeth bared, his arms locked straight. He was saying something, though Kylo couldn’t hear what over the rush of his own blood. There was fire in his hair, fire in his eyes; he was bathed in it, haloed by it.

Snoke - oh, what was Snoke but a dying old man? Hux was a young _god_.

“You,” Kylo rasped. Barely a sound passed his lips, but Hux began to laugh and loosened his grip. He leaned in and kissed him savagely, and with the sudden rush of oxygen, Kylo was left seeing stars as he came buried deep within the General. Hux leaned back and stroked himself to a swift and shuddering completion, ruining Kylo’s sweat-stuck shirt.

“And so the wolf of the Emperor becomes the General’s dog,” Hux said with another breathless, reckless laugh. He seemed sated and pleased as he dismounted Kylo, drawing his robe around himself again with one hand to lay beside him on the floor. Kylo might have found it charming in its indignity, but for all his release, he still felt as tightly coiled as a spring. Hux sighed, “Something troubles you still. Were you not satisfied?”

“No, that was--” Breathtaking. Heart-breaking. The highest of highs and the lowest of lows. They had never been intimate in such a manner before, and now Kylo couldn’t imagine ever being without it. He wanted to be utterly used up. Even so, his stomach was unsettled and his chest tight. He wished he could blame on the lack of food, the disturbed sleep, but he knew that would not be wholly truthful, “If there is one thing today that I have learned, it is how easily I might lose you to another.”

“Easily? Oh no, not easily at all,” Hux said. He touched his finger to the tip of Kylo’s nose, “I’m afraid you are quite stuck with me for now, Lord Ren.”

Kylo wished he could enjoy Hux’s bright mood and revel in his playful affections, but he couldn’t, “Precisely: for now. You may love me truly now but in time, you will come to lose interest. Unlike myself, in you there is no foolish compulsion to devote your entire self to one person, in heart, body and soul. In fact, I believe you would be happiest with many admirers who you permit to court you as you please.”

Hux was less than impressed with Kylo’s assessment. He narrowed his eyes, “Really, Ren. You make me sound cheap. Do you really believe me to be incapable of loving one person?”

“Do not be offended. I don’t question your honour, of depths of affection. It is a simple matter of nature. You are ambitious, beautiful, and highly intelligent. You must constantly be challenged and surprised or else you will grow bored. You will love with all your heart now, until you tire of my single-minded devotion. I realised this today, and I now know and accept it,” Kylo said, and turned on his side so he could better face Hux, “I will not let this colour the time we will spend together. I am-- shaken, perhaps.”

There was a curl to Hux’s lip that Kylo was sure to herald mockery of his inappropriate sombreness, but it never came. Instead the General lowered his head to Kylo’s shoulder and kept it there for a moment, seemingly deep in thought. He wished to carefully rearrange his brassy hair which had fallen out of place, but he knew he would be snapped at for disturbing him if he touched him, so he contented himself by carefully memorising every part of Hux he could see in his unguarded moment. He was watching him so intently that when the General did finally glance up, it startled him.

“What if I drew up a contract,” he said.

“A contract?” Kylo repeated, blinking.

“It wouldn’t be strictly legally binding, of course, but if we both have our sensible doubts it would at least be some sort of assurance,” Hux went on, “In it, you will declare on your honour to be my devoted slave, and I will declare on mine to keep you for an agreed amount of time. That way, for all our games we may both rest easier knowing there is security, and we can put aside this incessant back-and-forth of uncertainty.”

Kylo swallowed, pulling his gaze away from Hux to the fire for a moment, “And at the end of the agreed time?”

“We do it all again, if we are still both content with the arrangement. I was thinking perhaps year to year,” Hux said. He wasn’t leaning on Kylo’s shoulder anymore, instead propped up on his elbow, “A year seems like a reasonable amount of time, no?”

“You would do this - for me?” Kylo asked. Oh, they had talked before at some length about promises, about devotion, but to have it actually written in paper - Kylo knew Hux held these sort of things in far higher regard than mere uttered oaths.

“Of course,” he replied with great seriousness, “For _us_ , technically, but yes. I wouldn’t suggest what I wouldn’t do. But I know you do not quite believe me yet because you think I am drunk - which is also true, but irrelevant. Still, we can discuss it proper come morning. You are tired, and I really ought to wash before bed.”

Kylo nodded but didn’t pick himself up off the floor quite yet, and nor did Hux. He studied his face carefully with a serene expression, and leaned in to press their lips together in a chaste kiss that truly seemed to drain the last of Kylo’s light from him.

“You have pledged yourself to me. You have chosen me over your emperor,” Hux said softly, as if Kylo was already dreaming and not just on the cusp of sleep, “With this one last stroke of a pen, you really will belong to me.”

\--

It was the smell of coffee that roused Kylo, appealing to the gnawing hunger roiling in his gut. As he blinked himself awake, it took him a long a disorientating moment to realise that he was not in his own room, but in fact still lying on the floor by Hux’s fireplace, exactly as he had fallen asleep hours before. He had no blanket or pillow, and was still wearing his soiled shirt - he hadn’t even tucked himself back into his britches. He sat up and tried to do so, his body complaining greatly at another night spent on the floor.

“Ah. So you are finally awake,” Hux said from his spot in a nearby armchair. He looked quite handsome in a brown travelling suit Kylo hadn’t seen before, nursing a cup of coffee on his lap. He looked composed and perfectly sensible, and there was nothing of the previous evening’s voluptuousness about him, “Here I was thinking I would need a pail of water to dump on your head. A pity.”

Ren struggled to his feet with his head spinning and bile in his throat. He was acutely aware of what a mess he must look, particularly in comparison with Hux. He eyed his suit with some mistrust, “Are you going somewhere?”

“And a very good morning to you too, Ren,” Hux said tartly, and sipped his coffee, “As a matter of fact, I am. Kildare was right about one thing - it really is time for me to return to the capital. Snoke sent us all here with the instruction to formulate a plan for the final advancement of our empire, and that is what I have done. Now if this plan is to bare any kind of fruit, many elbows must be rubbed and palms pressed to gain as much support and funding as possible before presenting it to the Emperor himself.”

“Am I to be left behind?” Kylo asked once the meaning had filtered through the bedrock of his clouded mind. If the answer was ‘yes’, he wasn’t sure he could bare to hear it. His knees would give out from under him.

“Don’t be simple,” Hux said, and took another sip of his coffee, setting the cup back in its saucer with a sharp click, “I will need someone to carry my things, afterall. You and your Knights will accompany me, though I wouldn’t be wasting time hanging around here like some phantom. The coach will leave in--”

He took out a pocket watch, glanced at it.

“--an hour and forty minutes exactly, whether you are on it or not. Get to it.”

\--

An hour and forty minutes exactly gave Ren little time to breakfast or even wash properly. He wolfed down some scalding black coffee and plain white bread, splashed water about himself, and changed into his proper uniform. He ordered a veritable search party of terrified servants to find Kuna and Riktor while he packed, but within moments they appeared of their own accord, jostling at his door like crows.

They seemed restless, perhaps anxious to be reunited with their fellow Knights. Kylo felt it too. None of them had been apart from each other for such a length of time since joining the Knights of Ren. He went to them, reassured them with warm silence and a gentle touch; it had been an uncertain time for all of them, but _soon_ , the touch promised. Soon they would all be reunited.

The desire to be on the road as immediately as possible was quickly dampened by their travelling conditions: crammed together in a coach that was small enough to have their knees knocking against one another, and for all it was sure to be another sweltering summer day, Hux had insisted on having his furs with him. Kuna and Riktor sat side by side facing Hux and Kylo who shared a fur over their laps, and the silence as the coach rolled on was almost as oppressive as the heat.

“We’ll be making an overnight stop on the way, since the horses can’t ride on in this weather,” Hux said conversationally, after about an hour, “That will break up the travelling a little, at least.”

Kylo didn’t respond at first - he was trying not to mull over the fact Hux had not mentioned the proposed contract again, or why that might be, and the maze of trees along the side of the road had a sort of hypnotizing effect as they drove past. The mountain forest was so thick and dark at parts, he imagined there could be anything hiding just beyond the treeline and they would never know as they passed by. Wolves. Bears. An entire army.

Hux’s hand on his thigh caught his attention and he glanced over with a grunt of affirmation. The Knights remained silent as they usually were unless directly questioned, or amongst their own kind. The General’s attention seemed to waver but the hand remained, much to Kylo’s confusion, and then it began a slow journey upwards, making the intentions much clearer. He shifted in his seat, perhaps trying to dislodge the hand, and the General shot him an arched look.

“General Hux--” Kylo began softly as entreating fingers dug beneath his dress robes to grope at him through his britches. Hux shushed him and leaned against his shoulder, deftly undoing the buttons one-handed; Kylo had to clenched his jaw against the threat of a moan as he draw his cock into his leather-gloved hand and began to stroke.

Though the fur blanket over their lap hid the most obscene of the action, if was still perfectly clear what was happening. Kylo tried not to squirm in his seat like an errant schoolboy while Hux looked about him with a casual air, almost daring the Knights to say something. Neither of them did, though Kuna watched on with obvious interest, their mechanical fingers clicking softly as they flexed. Riktor stared on straight ahead, unseeing and seething. He clearly took it to be a lack of respect, and Kylo wondered if Hux realised the dangerous game he played with a man such as he.

Kylo found he couldn’t meet anyone’s eye in the coach; he turned his, head stared out of the window with his knuckled pressed to his mouth. He could feel Hux watching him, monitoring every twitch of his face, every aborted moan as he swiped his thumb over his slit on the up-stroke. Hux was utterly unrelenting, and in a few short moments he spilled over his gloved hand with little more than a hitched breath.

Hux withdrew his hand from the furs, and examined the pearly seed that made the black leather shine. After considering it, he offered his hand to Kuna. The effect was immediate, though perhaps not the one Hux had desired: Riktor made to grab the General’s wrist with a snarl, and was sure to break it if Kylo hadn’t stopped him first. Kuna, however, seemed unperturbed. They leaned forward and took the General’s offered hand, and with obscene delicateness, began to clean Kylo’s issue from his fingers.

No-one in the coach spoke after that, not until they reached the inn they were to stop at overnight. The loathing that came off Riktor in waves was palpable, but Kuna seemed immensely pleased with themself as though they had just been commended for an order perfectly executed, and Hux didn’t seem to care either way. Kylo spent the rest of the journey with the blanket pulled up around his chest, pretending to be asleep.

\--

The inn at which the stopped to spend the night was much like any of the others Kylo had ever stayed in, with its flaked white-washed walls and sparse furnishings - in fact, he would have been entirely unsurprised if he found it was one he had already stayed at on his way up the mountain.

They arrived some time in the early evening, long before dinner was due to be served, and Kylo thought to take some time to himself to meditate and perhaps sleep. He needed to clear his head after the incident in the coach, and though Hux had elected to share a room with him due to the restrictions of the tiny inn, he was kind enough to permit him a little rest.

When he awoke several hours later, he was alone and it was dark beyond the grubby panes of the room’s single window. It was oddly quiet, and Kylo slipped out of bed to follow the only source of light he could see, which seemed to be coming from downstairs. It led him to some sort of dining room where Hux was sat at a table, surrounded by plans on paper. It seemed dinner had come and gone, taking everyone else with it.

“I let you sleep,” he said without glancing up, as though he could sense Kylo’s disappointment, “You looked as though you needed it.”

Kylo nodded, though he remained in the doorway, not sure if that was an invitation to disturb him at work or not, “Where are my Knights? I must speak with them before we reach the capital.”

This time Hux did look up, if only for a half second, “I sent them away.”

Kylo felt his stomach clench, “And they obeyed you?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Hux said with a mild smile, “Fear not, there’s nothing untoward going on. It’s all just part of my little plan.”

When Kylo’s steely silence was his only response, Hux sighed and folded the sheet he had been reading. He stood and began to gather his papers into a neat pile.

“You see, it occurred to me that while you and I have deeper understand of it, some of the-- the _smaller minded_ people of the capital might take offence to our current arrangement. The might consider it a poor reflection on our nature - specifically your nature - which in turn reflects poorly on the Knights of Ren, and even the Emperor himself. You understand how we cannot let that happen, yes?” Hux waited for Kylo to nod before he continued with a softer voice, “What I want is to continue as we are, as we wish to be, in happiness and in standing. That cannot happen if you appear as Kylo Ren on the end of my chain.”

Kylo could sense Hux was trying to lead him to some conclusion, and it was fairly obvious to him which conclusion that was, “We have need of a disguise, then.”

“Quite. Afterall, the only people at the capital who know your face are indeed your Knights and the Emperor, for all he’s never to be seen himself. Not even Kildare will be there - though oddly enough, you could trust him,” Hux said. He picked up his things and stepped around Kylo, leaving the room and heading for their own, “Follow me.”

“I still don’t see why you had to send them away,” Kylo insisted as he obediently followed Hux up the narrow staircase to the bedroom. The General’s travelling suit was still lightly creased from the journey, but it didn’t detract from its handsomeness; the colour brought out the russet in Hux’s hair, and the pulled-in waist made Kylo want to grab his hips from behind. It was impossibly distracting. Hux glanced over his shoulder with a raised brow as though he had read Kylo’s very thoughts.

“I told them to return to the mountain, make sure they were seen, and then disappear for a short time. That out to deflect any real concerns about your whereabouts, since where Lord Ren goes, his Knights are sure to follow,” he said. He put the schematics in one trunk and took a brown paper parcel from the other. He offered it to Kylo, “Your disguise.”

Kylo wasn’t wholly convinced by the idea, and nor was he so sure his Knights would have followed Hux’s orders without consulting him first. He knew he had nothing to fear so long as he was with Hux, but he still felt an uncomfortable sort of vulnerability. He eyed the parcel but took it anyway. Inside was a black and white uniform of sorts, and Hux watched him unfold it with an uncanny smile, “A butler?”

“Nearly - a footman. But not just any footman, no,” he said, stepping into Kylo’s space. Kylo shivered and bowed his head into the General’s demanding kiss, but there was something sharp behind his smile, something that sent a ripple of electricity through his whole being.

“Welcome back to the world, Ben Solo.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for the delay in posting this. Personal problems (I have lost my job) have been draining my creative motivation. 
> 
> Warning for suicide mention, knifeplay, and blood in this chapter.

“there is no honest way to

explain it because the only people

who really know where it is are the

ones who have gone over.”

Hunter S Thompson, _The Edge_

 

\--

 

Ben Solo was a dead man, and Kylo Ren was increasingly convinced that he was too. At least, that is how it felt, lying on a hard cot in a cold, bare room - like a condemned man waiting to hang in the morning, or a soul already lost to Purgatory. It would be fitting, he supposed, if that is where he had sent Ben, and where Ben had now returned to.

He was not entirely alone in the room; the majority of the space was taken up by four small beds that were closely pushed together, though only two were presently occupied - one by Kylo himself, and the other by an older gentleman who had already been asleep when he arrived despite the early hour. Several hours later and he was still sleeping. His rest was fitful, feverish; he tossed about and coughed often. Disease was a likely cause, and every sound and movement he made left Kylo’s skin crawling from the proximity of it.There was nothing he could do and nowhere he could go to escape it, not without running afoul of an entirely different threat.

Hux held all his possessions, from his sabre right down to his socks. All Kylo had with him was a fresh shirt and a wash kit for the morning, although he did briefly entertain the thought of opening the old man’s throat with the straight razor to bring himself some relief. He resisted, and instead lay on his side, staring at the door and willing with all the strength of his spirit for someone to come calling for him. When someone finally did come, he leapt out of bed before they could even announce their business.

“Your master’s wanting his dinner now,” the visitor said, stepping back as Kylo pushed past him. He was a long-limbed youth in a white apron, presumably a kitchen worker. He had a lopsided grin and an awkward gait that spoke of an ill-set broken leg, and Kylo was content to let him lead the way to the hotel’s kitchens--if only he would hurry up. They walked in relative silence, with Kylo trying to memorise the hotel’s layout so he could do this alone if need be; he could see out of the corner of his eye the youth was watching him, seemingly eager to speak. Kylo pretended to be oblivious, but it didn’t deter him.

“So how come he’s having two meals then? I seen him when he came in, he’s as slim as a willow whip, surely no glutton,” he said, and Kylo could only assume he was referring to Hux, “Or what, he takes his meals with his favourite serving boy like some lonely old spinster?”

He dug at Kylo’s ribs with his elbow as he spoke, and Kylo shrugged him off with a clenched jaw, “Mind your own business.”

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” the kitchen boy said with a low whistle and a laugh as the came to the serving hatch. He handed the dinner tray over to Kylo with an overly familiar wink, “Far from me to judge, squire. I love them pretty rich boys, and they don’t come much prettier or richer than the good General.”

Kylo begrudgingly knew he meant no malice by it, only thinking of sharing a laugh with a fellow over-worked domestic at his master’s expense - it was common enough for staff to play on their employer’s affections for special treatment, like dogs doing tricks for treats. It was the only thing stopping Kylo from breaking the dinner tray over the boy’s head for the pure disrespect of it. He kept his tongue pressed to his teeth as he knocked his shoulder on the way past, the crockery under the silver cloche clinking gaily with each angry step.

It was typical trite filth from the back of house staff, of which Kylo had already had his fill on the brief journey to the capital and the week or so they had already spent in other hotels while the General looked for more permanent accommodation. When pressed, Hux hadn’t been able to say for sure how long he expected to be in the capital for exactly, but it would be a month at the very least. Kylo was of the strong opinion that the sooner they found some sort of apartment or house, the better. He was quite tired of having to act out his disguise so dutifully.

It wasn’t that he had to sleep in awful little rooms and rub elbows with unsavory simpletons - he had endured far worse and such things were trivial at most - but he felt as though Hux had become a stranger to him since the evening he had kissed him frightfully and named him Ben Solo once more. He held Kylo at arm’s length, as though he was a real footman; while Hux slept in luxurious suites befitting his rank, Kylo was resigned to the cheapest rooms. He was not to come unless called for, and other than carrying their shared luggage up to the wherever Hux was staying, he typically had very little to do with the General beyond surreptitious shared meals. He had not even been permitted the familiarity of an embrace, a kiss, a touch. It left Kylo feeling scorned, aching, bringing about a certain agitation of the spirit that had been unknown to him before then.

That unhappy restlessness was an unwelcome and morbid omen, he was sure, because what he felt was unmistakably only the tiniest fraction of the discord that would follow were he ever truly separated from Hux, and this realisation - or confirmation rather, since with honest consideration, it was no _surprise_ to him - was immeasurably frightful.

Kylo readjusted his grip on the heavy tray as he ascended the final staircase - one of many, since Hux had a preference for rooms on the upper floors if at all possible, claiming they were warmer. He sat it down to knock upon and then open the door.

“Your dinner, General,” he announced as he entered, because Hux sometimes found it quite droll to keep up the so-called disguise in private, and the wry half-smile it earned him lifted Kylo’s spirit immeasurably.

“ _Our_ dinner,” Hux corrected, clearing the small table of his things to make room for the tray, “Though I should imagine it will be perfectly cold by now. I rang for it more than half an hour ago.”

“Forgive me, sir. It is an old building, and so young in employment am I that I got lost on the way here,” Kylo said meekly, with eyes downturned.

“Sir? Oh yes, I like that one. You shall have to call me that more often,” Hux said, quite amused, “Now come, sit. Eat, and be quick about it, as I am tired and would like to retire soon. I would suggest you do the same, since we will be up with the sun tomorrow.”

“Moving on already?” Kylo asked as he removed the cloche and laid out their plates. Hux didn’t touch his, but did help himself to the small carafe of wine.

“Something like that. You will be happy to hear I have found a house I believe will be suitable, and we go to see it early tomorrow so that we may move in by the afternoon if it pleases me,” Hux said. Kylo nodded but did not respond further; he was to have no input on their new abode, which suited him fine. He would sleep in a hovel if need be, and indeed had done so before.

With a rare appetite, Kylo instead focused on finishing his meal as quickly as possible. He had eaten little that day, some porridge at breakfast and nothing since, but after only a few forkfuls, Hux pulled the plate away from him and sat it back on the tray. He did the same with his own plate, but left the wine.

“I think that is enough for today,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “Rebuild my fire before you go.”

Kylo swallowed his disappointment along with the last meagre mouthful and went to stoke the fire, which was already burning high enough by his own standards. He poked and prodded and added kindling and coal until the whole thing was merrily blazing away like it was a mid-winter night, and at a glance the General seemed satisfied. Kylo then collected the dinner tray and made to leave, but Hux stopped him before he made it to the door.

“Before I forget,” he said, calling him closer with the curl of one finger. From his pocket he produced a single slim shining vial: sweet laudanum, most woeful ambrosia! Kylo nearly dropped the tray at the sight of it, his hands suddenly weak as a child’s - while his supply was in his possession, Hux permitted him one such small vial per day, only a few drops in all, because servants did not ‘stagger about insensible’, or so he claimed. Kylo’s bones ached with such a bleak and sudden severance.

Hux smiled as he tipped the vial against Kylo’s lips, and it was like a kiss. It started as a slow spreading warmth on his tongue that crawled through his whole body, wracking him with a shiver from top to toe, and all the while Hux watched him with a needle-tipped intensity that was just as intoxicating.

“There we go,” he said in an unnervingly soft manner, like a mother with a cool cloth for a fevered brow, “Do you not feel better already?”

Kylo nodded; he did feel better, both for the laudanum and for Hux’s careful attention. It was almost enough to make him forget his hunger.

\--

The old man died in the night. His death-rattle woke Kylo, and he sat up in bed to peer into the consuming inky black of the room, watching him drown in air without seeing him at all. The wet, desperate gasps lasted only for a little while before it was finally done, and the man was dead.

Kylo stayed sitting like that for some time, waiting, but for what he did not know. One last breath? The gasp of a parting soul? To feel spectral hands pass over his mouth and throat and push down into his lungs, choking him too? Or perhaps simply for the sudden and morbid silence to stop pressing on him like Sabine shields on gold-parched Tarpeia, and allow him his morsel of rest.

He thought of going to fetch someone, and instead lay back down on the cot and tried to sleep a little more. Dawn was nearly upon them and the hotel workers would find the old man come morning, long after Kylo had already left. He lay facing away from where the corpse rested, and even though he scorned himself for it, he fancied he could feel the cold, wet touch of glassy eyes staring at his back. The seemed to ask but one question: who will find _you_ when it’s all done?

\--

The house of which the General spoke was not much at all what Kylo had imagined it to be. In his head, he had pictured it as grand, outwardly noble in the way the mountain manse had been, if such a thing existed in the city. What the carriage arrived at that morning, however, was a small sickle-shaped street of tall terraced town-houses, each one identical, grey-faced and austere, all set about with black iron grates and fences. Vacant eye-like windows stared out over a copse of trees that blocked the street from the busier roadway, and even at that time in the morning, not a single one bore light or any other sign of life. When combined with the dull and overcast day, the perceived effect was an insufferable and pervasive sense of gloom that settled over all like a blanket. Kylo hated the place on sight.

They stopped outside the house at the zenith of the half-circle, at the dead center of the street. Kylo offered his arm to Hux to alight from the coach and was soundly ignored; the General trotted up the steps to the heavy black front door, where he was greeted by the slight and ultimately forgettable proprietor. They disappeared within and Kylo was left to stare up at the shadowy mouth of the entrance hall with obvious mistrust.

A tepid breeze stirred the trees behind him, and Kylo shuddered with the leaves. He could not place what it was about the house, and indeed the entire street, that disturbed him so. Brief consideration brought him to the conclusion it was merely the lingering effects of the night’s mortal events playing on the fringes of his imagination. After all, he had not even set foot inside the house yet, and such superstitions were laughable to the sober mind.

Kylo found the house stretched far further back than it was possible to tell from outside, though it was just as tall and narrow as expected. The long hallway did not seem any better lit once inside; in fact, the feeble light from the door could scarcely pierce the gloom more than a few feet. Beyond that, dull brass wall mounts had to be relied on for a weak and watery illumination. The walls of the entrance hall and indeed most of the house, as Kylo found the further he progressed, were a deep crimson. Paintings and portraits of all kinds cluttered every spare inch of space, and the surface of every piece of mismatched furniture was littered with books and many curiosities, but it failed to lend any sense of vitality to the scene. The air was stale and stern, like it hadn’t been breathed in decades.

There were doors on either side of the hallway, through one of which was Hux and the proprietor. Kylo could hear them talking, voices low and indistinct as though they were very far away. One led to a front room of sorts, one to the kitchens, and one to the cellar, as an entire floor of the building was below street level. At the end of the corridor was a steep and narrow staircase that stretched into the indistinct darkness of the unlit floor above. A glint caught his eye in the shadows, and there was a shape at the top of the stairs he couldn’t quite make out, but on approach it revealed itself to be a great ebony grandfather clock, surely taller by far than Kylo himself. The clock’s tick was unusually loud, deep and clear like pacing footsteps, louder by far than the voices in the other room; though at first he perceived the hands to be moving at the rightful pace, the harder he stared, the more apparent it became that something was abnormal in their movements.

Tentatively, he came closer, one foot on the bottom step as he peered upwards. Indeed the minute hand seemed to be progressing too quickly, ticking on until it was very nearly as fast as the slim second hand, which at that point was spinning wildly. The effect was dizzying, almost hypnotic, and he found himself being drawn in. There was a feeling that something was horribly wrong with the clock, not simply in a mechanical sense, but beyond that, above that. Kylo found himself at the top of the stairs before he realised he had even moved. He reached out and it was as though he was moving through treacle, every inch a great effort; his fingers brushed the glass dome of the clock face, and the hands came to a sudden stop at twelve exactly.

The clock began to chime, a great sonorous and brass-lunged clanging that reverberated through Kylo’s chest, bringing with it a wave of overwhelming dread that washed over Kylo like ice water down his back. He uttered a single wordless noise of horror as his legs gave out from under him, bringing him to his knees. It rang and rang and rang as all the bells in Rome, filling his head, filling his throat, filling--

“Ben.”

Silence cut through the cacophony. Kylo jerked around to face Hux, who was standing at the bottom of the stairs, hand on the railing and a frown on his smooth brow. The proprietor’s wan face peered out of the doorway to the dining room.

“What on earth are you doing? Get on your feet and come down here now, we’re leaving,” Hux said with a sharp snap of his fingers. Kylo blinked at him, then looked back to the clock face. The hands were settled at around ten minutes past nine, and the second hand ticked away in its steady pace; the chiming had stopped, but his ears were still ringing, “ _Ben_.”

Foul madness, or mad folly? Another bout of mania, so unrecognisable by meek and moderate light of day, brought on perhaps by an intolerant dose of laudanum - too much, or more likely, too little. Kylo pulled himself up as surely as his could, though he still felt oddly shaken. He brought himself to Hux’s side silently, and after the General bid the proprietor a polite goodbye, they returned to the carriage.

“You found it to be unsuitable?” Kylo asked after a short time, hoping to distract himself from the ache behind his eyes.

“Hm? Oh, no, it’s perfectly adequate. We’re going to collect our luggage from the hotel and return this afternoon, actually. Did you know it used to belong to a dissident? Some sort of rebel sympathiser. It was appropriated by the state following their somewhat sudden disappearance, and with a few words in the right ear--” Hux made a small gesture, and looked really quite pleased with himself, “Well, it belongs to me now.”

Kylo nodded; he didn’t dare say anything about how he had felt or what had happened in the house, or else Hux would surely laugh him right out of the carriage. The General, ever astute, seemed to notice regardless.

“You are quite pale. Is something the matter?” he asked, leaning into him minutely, “You were acting strangely inside too.”

Kylo chewed on his answer, “I feel unwell. My head--”

“Ah, that old chestnut. Well, do get better soon,” Hux said, stealthily pressing his fingers to Kylo’s hand as though he was afraid the driver would somehow see them. Despite the touch, there was not much sympathy in his tight smile.

\--

The old man was gone by the time they returned to the hotel. His deathbed had been stripped and remade, and was patiently waiting for the next warm body to check in. There was no sign that anyone had been there, living or dead. It was as if the old man had never existed at all. The room they had shared was empty, and Kylo was wholly alone.

\--

At the end of the corridor opposite the great black grandfather clock, there once hung a painting. It was no longer there, but the impression it had left behind lingered on like a ghost in the form of a large area of less-faded wall. It had been slightly smaller than a man, and approximately half so narrow as it was tall, and as he stood before it, Kylo could not help but wonder why it and it alone - out of all the many, many things in the house, including dozens of other paintings of all kinds - had been taken.

Had the former resident taken it with them when they had fled - if they had fled - or had it been removed afterwards? A personal treasure, or something deemed too incendiary to remain on state property? Perhaps it had been damaged some time before, or had been sent away to be reframed, and now it languished in some unfortunate studio, waiting for a master that would never come to collect it. A pitiful thought.

“Perhaps I ought to have my portrait painted, while I’m still young,” Hux said from behind Kylo, making him jump, “Is that awfully vain of me?”

“No-- I approve,” Kylo said as he turned, and he meant it. Such beauty deserved to be preserved for a thousand years, though a stubborn selfish little part of him wanted to jealously guard Hux’s countenance as one of only a privileged few thousands to ever gaze upon it, “If you can find an artist worthy of the task.”

“Oh, flattery? I see you’re feeling well again,” Hux smiled as he looped his arms around Kylo’s neck, pressing up against his breast in the first real contact they had shared in far too long. Kylo’s hands settled on his waist so naturally, like a perfect fit.

“A little,” he said. The house felt slightly more wholesome with added light and life, though Kylo still found himself wandering from room to room, uncomfortable and feeling every bit an intruder. Having Hux back within arm’s reach was ever the greatest balm too; the General lifted his chin in coy invitation, and Kylo crashed against him like waves on the coast. Oh, he did not have enough hands for how he wished to embrace him! Nor enough breath for how he wished to kiss him, or time enough to love him!

Hux untangled himself from Kylo’s hopeless pawing, and as always after their impulsive moments of passion, he looked utterly untouched and unaffected, the soft shine of his hard mouth the only evidence of their embrace. It was maddening, and Kylo adored it; distant starry little god, cold eyes and silver skin. The General took his hand and began to guide him towards the study.

“I have something for you,” he said, “Something you might like.”

Kylo was happy to be led like a lamb, and enquired not as to what the gift could be, simply pleased to be given anything but a cold shoulder. The study itself was a relatively small room, the same sort of ruddy crimson as most of the other rooms, furnished with several unremarkable bookcases and a large desk. The fire was blazing, of course, and many candelabras had been lit and scattered around; it should have given the room a bright and warm air, but the shadows they threw were to heavy, too dark, and it was as though all the oxygen in the room had been burned away.

Hux bid him to sit at the desk, which Kylo did. He then produced a slim envelope with what appeared to be several pages inside. Kylo opened it, and immediately recognised the General’s cramped, slanted handwriting.

“The contract,” he exhaled, his breath catching lightly.

“Did you think I had forgotten? I was merely waiting for the right time,” Hux said, standing close behind Kylo, his hands on his shoulders and his mouth at his ear, “Read it aloud. Tell me it pleases you.”

Kylo unfolded the sheets and wet his lips nervously, trying to rein in the excited gallop of his heart. To his credit, his hands barely trembled at all.

 

> “The following document is a binding agreement between General A. Hux (occ. known henceforth as ‘the General’), and Lord K. Ren (‘Ren’).
> 
> _On the part of Lord Ren:_
> 
> Ren, from this moment forth, ceases any romantic engagement with A. Hux, and renounces any rights he believes he has appertaining thereunto. Hereafter, K. Ren will instead be the slave of A. Hux until such a time as the mutual dissolution of this agreement.
> 
> As the General’s slave, he is to bear the name and countenance of Ben Solo, a footman, unless instructed otherwise. He is to comply unconditionally to every one of the General’s wishes, and to obey all commands. He is always to be submissive to his master, and to consider any sign of favour to be an extraordinary mercy.
> 
> Ren is to pledge his absolute loyalty to A. Hux and his service, as such placing him above his Emperor, country, God, and even self. All property, belongings and holdings shall be transferred to the General forthwith.
> 
> In short, Ren shall cease to exist as a fully formed independent human being, and shall instead be the sole unrestricted property of A. Hux.
> 
> _On the part of General Hux:_
> 
> Hux, from this moment forth, ceases any romantic engagement with K. Ren, and instead hereafter shall be his master until such a time as the mutual dissolution of this agreement.
> 
> While the General is free to treat Ren as he sees fit, he may not permanently send him away or abandon him for any reason. As primary caregiver and sole overseer of both party’s wealth and holdings, A. Hux will provide adequate food, clothing, and shelter for Ren.
> 
> The terms agreed to in this document are final, and may not be changed until the contract is reviewed a year henceforth from the date of signing. Violation of, or failure to meet agreed terms is a betrayal of the utmost seriousness, of which the penalty may be death.”

 

By the end of it, Kylo was surprised he had made it all the way through the document without choking. His mouth was dry, his throat seized by a quiet horror. He was impossibly aware of the General half draped over him, awaiting his response. 

“Death?” was all Kylo managed to utter.

“After some consideration, I decided that it was all very well and good swearing on honour and a man’s fine word and all that, but to swear on your very mortal life is something else entirely. Something more tangible. It is the purest expression of absolute trust I can imagine, and vows such as these really deserve no less,” Hux said. He leaned over and opened one of the drawers of the desk, and drew out another two pieces of paper. He sat them down almost delicately, like they might crumble at a touch, “I have already signed mine. You will have to write out your own copy, of course, so it is in your own handwriting.”

Kylo read the smaller document, and then read it twice again. It contained only a few words.

 

> Having become increasingly weary of existence and its illusions, I have of my own free will decided to put an end to my miserable life.

 

True to his word, Hux had already signed his own copy; the second page was almost accusingly blank. Hux presented him with a pen and ink which he reached for out of pure reflex before he stopped himself at the last moment, pulling away like it was poisoned. There was still time, he thought, he could still deny courting this madness and leave the General, return to Snoke, return to his Knights. 

“You hesitate,” Hux said in a soft, dangerous voice that lit fires in Kylo; bonfires, beacons, funeral pyres, “Are you afraid of the happiness that is to be yours? Do you, perhaps - lack the courage?”

Kylo didn’t respond, and wasn’t sure if he even could. Indeed there was fear, but there was more than that in ways and volumes Kylo couldn’t hope to ever express. Whatever it was, was big enough to swallow him whole. Would he die for Hux? For the love of him? Yes, he probably would, and even hand Hux the knife if need be, because what sweeter hands to die by, what more divine way to perish than as a true martyr of love - but drowning in a sea of bliss was still drowning. Kylo hadn’t a clue what to do with himself; he was fearful, and delighted, and utterly insensible with love.

“Ah, I see what it is,” Hux continued after another prolonged moment of silence. He put the lid back on the pen and withdrew entirely from Kylo, “You don’t trust me.”

Kylo started as though he had been shocked, and grasped for the pen again, “No - no, that’s not - please. I will sign. Let me sign.”

He quickly scrawled his name and the date on the first document, and put it back in its envelope, but found himself hesitating over the second once again. Hux reached out and placed his hand on Kylo’s, guiding it, and once pen touched paper, the words seemed to appear as if conjured out of thin air. It only took a moment and it was done, complete with his name and several desperate inkblots. Hux spirited the slip away, waving it lightly to help it dry before he returned it to the envelope along with his own copy.

“It will all be kept here, in this one drawer, which shall be left unlocked,” Hux said, and there was an uncanny pause, “Should we have need of it.”

He then turned back to Kylo, and was smiling in a soft, almost tender manner that Kylo was unfamiliar with and immediately smitten by. Hux leaned against the desk, reached out and brushed his knuckles across his cheek; Kylo turned his head to kiss and nip at his fingers. Beautiful hands, strong hands, hands that beat him, caressed him, penned the contract that sealed his fate. How he loved them. How reckless they made him.

“Is it not perfect? Is it not just how you dreamed it to be? I love you, I own you, and now I can never leave you,” Hux asked, his fingers playing along Kylo’s decadently full mouth.

“Better than I dreamed,” Kylo said, and he could feel the heat rising in him, “Better than I could ever dream.”

“And yet you are still scared,” the General mused, as if talking entirely to himself. His thumb breeched Kylo’s lips and pushed into the warm, wet silk of his mouth. Kylo exhaled through his nose and tried to meet the intruding digit with his tongue, to lavish and suck on it obscenely, desperately; Hux trapped it with his thumb, pinning it down, making Kylo panic slightly as he tried to swallow reflexively and nearly choked, “How beautiful you look when you think you know fear.”

Kylo felt drunk from the General’s disquieting attention, light-headed and hot-faced. Despite their positions, he grasped Hux’s wrist, tried to draw his thumb further into his mouth in the most lascivious manner, desperate to show how eager he was to please, how capable. The General responded by laughing and pulling his hand out of reach with the slightest shake of his head.

“Come now, to my quarters,” he said, already making to leave the room, tossing Kylo a sly glance on the way out of the door, “The hour is late, and there is still much to be done.”

Kylo sat dumbfounded for several seconds, not entirely sure of what happened, or what was still to happen; promises written on paper, promises thrown in coy looks. He found his feet with the help of the desk and staggered out of the study in pursuit of Hux, only to find the General had already disappeared with nary a sign left behind. The corridor seemed to stretch on for twice the distance it actually was, and at the end of the dark grandfather clock stood guard, a heavy, brooding presence. Kylo avoided looking at it as he slipped by it and up the staircase to the final floor where Hux’s quarters were. It still made the fine hairs at the back of his neck stand on end, and he fled from it like a cat with a trodden tail.

Hux’s rooms essentially took up the entire top floor like its own apartment, and the door at the top of the stairs had been left ajar. Warm light spilled invitingly down the steps, and inside he found the General already waiting for him by a grand bed, bigger perhaps than any he had seen. Kylo knew what to do: he divested himself of his own clothes as quickly as he could, and without shame knelt at Hux’s feet, his head bowed and his hands ready to help him out of his tall boots. The leather was warm and soft under his touch, and Hux’s skin softer still. He wanted to kiss it. He wanted to kiss him, and better yet he wanted to feel the kiss of a short and sharp whip, if only Hux would be so cruel, or perhaps kind.

Kneeling like that - naked and under the sharp gaze of the General - was a heady act, one that Kylo in his current state could hardly bare. His trembling hands found Hux’s hips and he pressed forward, nuzzling the arousal that strained against the fabric, mouthing at it even while he struggled to open his britches. Hux pushed him away.

“Hux--” Kylo began, only to be cut off by a tart slap to his face.

“Try again,” Hux said.

“Master,” Kylo attempted once more, subdued, “Please.”

“No. Not yet, at least. Get on the bed and lie on your back. Firmly grasp the headboard, and whatever you do, do not let go for any reason. Not unless I tell you,” Hux said, “Understand?”

Kylo nodded in the affirmative, and arranged himself thusly. It left him feeling oddly exposed, like a pig on a butcher’s block. If he craned his neck, he could just about see Hux fetching something from a locked box on a nearby dressing table, and in the mirror his face was a picture of serenity.

Kylo’s curiosity was sated when Hux returned to the bed and perched on the edge, showing him a little bottle nestled in the palm of his hand. It was glass and shaped like a tear-drop, and reminded Kylo of a perfume bottle or a tear catcher. Inside there was a small measure of reddish-brown liquid: laudanum, of course, but easily three or four times the amount Hux had permitted him daily since their arrangement had began. Kylo nearly let go of the headboard to reach for it before he remembered his orders.

“A reward,” Hux said, unstoppering the bottle, “For being so good, so obedient. For keeping your word.”

“Thank you, master,” Kylo said, and the word felt good in his mouth, almost as good as the bitter burn of the laudanum as Hux brought the bottle to his wanting lips and bid him to swallow it all down. His dark head fell back against the pillow and he closed his eyes, savouring the creeping heat as it coiled slowly, so slowly down his throat and into his lungs, his stomach, filling every part of him like the soft progression of sunlight across the carpet.

Hux seemed content to wait as Kylo passed through the other side of the veil that was that first and nearly overwhelming rush of pleasure. He crawled onto the bed and swung his leg over to carefully straddle Kylo’s abdomen. He wasn’t particularly heavy - in fact, the weight of him was reassuring, grounding in a moment when Kylo might have drifted off entirely - but it still made it difficult to breathe, compounding the already laboured breaths of an opium eater.

Kylo frowned lightly, tried to stir beneath Hux, but all his strength had fled at the first few drops on his tongue. He wanted to touch Hux, to feel the soft skin of his thighs around his hips, to caress his smooth chest and deceptively strong arms, but he wasn’t allowed to move his hands, and Hux was still mostly dressed though his sleeves were neatly rolled up to the elbow. When had that happened?

“Don’t fall asleep now, Ben,” the Hux said, leaning over Kylo, bringing their lips together in the most beautiful whisper of a kiss. When he pulled away, there was something new in his hand - something that he’d taken from beneath the pillow, and it was not another bottle, “There’s still one thing left to sign.”

Kylo didn’t realise what it was at first until the glint of the blade caught the low light, and at once he grew still, half-frozen in fear. The General brought the tip of the fine vendetta blade to Kylo’s heaving breast, and he was sure he was ready to collect his mortal debt so soon. The steel bit into his flesh, drawing a pained gasp from him, but rather than piercing through him, Hux drew it down in a straight line no more than three inches in length. Pain followed, welling up with the blood from the wound, delayed but sharp and far too real. Still, he clung to the headboard like a drowning man to a rope.

Kylo tried to speak but Hux covered his mouth with his hand, leaning into it, half-suffocating him - he was focused, teeth pressing beautifully into the soft swell of his bottom lip as another short cut followed, and then a third, and Kylo came to realise it was the letter ‘A’ so neatly carved into his flesh. The ‘H’ followed thereafter, and tears gathered in Kylo’s hazy eyes like the blood that pooled in the hollow of his neck.

The pain passed into heat, and the cuts began to feel more like a half-healed burn, not quite an ache but a low hot throb. Kylo could feel the perfect outline of the initials, bright like they had been written in white-hot wires pressed against his chest, a brand for life. They glowed with each heartbeat. He could see them when he closed his eyes. He could see Hux too, and he looked very pleased with his work.

“A for Armitage, and A for Ares,” Hux said, quiet but amused. He tossed the knife away, and dragged his fingers through the blood, pressed the wounds and watched the blood seep up between them. Kylo gave a muffled gasp at the reignited pain, and Hux shushed him softly, kissing the back of his hand that was still over his mouth in some mockery of a kiss, “A for all mine. A for always and forever. Now, you truly belong to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to come say hello at brood-mother.tumblr.com !!


	5. Chapter 5

"My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy; and, when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture, such as you cannot even imagine."

Mary Shelley, _Frankenstein_  

_\--_

By the time Kylo’s senses had halfway returned to him, he was already back in his own quarters after Hux had ordered him out. He could not recall leaving the General’s rooms, or how he had made his way down to the first floor without incident - in fact, he could remember scarcely a thing after being cut, and he imagined that only lingered so intensely because the pain in his chest was there to remind him with every breath.

It was cool in his room, almost cold compared to the unholy heat of the top floor. It was dark too; Kylo hadn’t lit any candles or lamps, and the only light came from beyond the door, which had been left ajar. In the gloom, he could just about make out the dull gleam of several silver bells lined up on the wall opposite his bed - relics from when the room had been used as servants’ quarters, though he supposed in a manner of speaking it still was.

The stray thought made him laugh, and he wondered on some absent level if he had finally gone mad. It seemed so absurd to think that not half a year before, he had stood at the Emperor’s side as a Lord of myth and legend, and know he knelt at the General’s feet to take off his boots and kiss his hand. Which brought him more happiness? Against all reason of man and mankind, it was the honest satisfaction of _subjugation_ , the cleansing pain, the scalding honesty of it. There was liberation in his newly forged chains, for who was he but a dead man’s imposter? What did he have to do but please his master? No earthly concerns but the giving and receiving of love.

Despite the fear and the pain - or indeed because of it - Kylo had found contentment, and even peace. It was quite literally carved over his heart.

\--

The following day, sometime shortly after lunch, Hux announced that he would be attending a soiree of sorts that evening. Kylo was not to accompany him, of course, since it was to be a somewhat intimate affair of good friends and bringing their own servants would be considered poor taste - not that Kylo particularly minded, since he had little inclination for socialising. Instead, he got to enjoy the quiet ritual of assisting the General in dressing; helping him into his tails, combing his hair to perfection, polishing his dress shoes until they shone like black glass.

He got the feeling that Hux would rather be doing it himself, or that Kylo wasn’t quite up to standard, and that he was just indulging him. If anything it only made him try harder to please his master, and by the end of it he thought Hux cut a truly striking figure in his evening suit, all clean sharp lines and a soft black silk that brought his colouring to life. Kylo half-wished to take him apart just has he had put him together, or rather to be taken apart, to be the cause of lost buttons and mussed hair.

Hux allowed him to kiss his cheek in the entrance hall, and then Kylo was alone. He didn’t know what to do with himself at first, and lingered in the hallway for several minutes, perhaps in the vague hope that Hux would change his mind and return to him. It wasn’t until the regretfully familiar sensation of dread began to settle around his shoulders did he move, first to the kitchens, and then to his own room with the hope of resting a little, but still it followed. He retreated upstairs, skirting around the clock and into the study where he thought he might at least distract himself a while.

Kylo kept his hands to himself as he browsed the bookshelves; all of the books belonged to the last master of the house, and he found himself not wanting to touch them more than could be helped. Many of them were in languages he couldn’t speak, and others were bound in plain unembossed leather, more like personal journals than books. He avoided them entirely, and instead took a small selection of classic studies, Greek and Roman mostly, things which Snoke would have approved of.

He sat at the desk to read them, the same desk at which he had signed his life away. At first the distraction worked, and he whittled away the better part of an hour, but found he could do little more than skim the passages. It became increasingly difficult to concentrate, particularly as he was starting to feel tired. Something was bothering him, though Kylo couldn’t put his finger on what, exactly; it wasn’t the oppressive sensation from earlier, but rather more like an itch somewhere he couldn’t scratch.

Kylo sat back in the chair, stifled a yawn and sighed. He would consider retiring early, if he could have faced going back down stairs again. In his moment of distraction, Kylo’s eye was drawn to the top left drawer of the desk, the one he knew would be unlocked. He opened it with some degree of hesitation, and it was empty inside save for the envelope which sat plainly in the middle as though it had been waiting for him. He picked it up and turned it over in his fingers, enjoying the savory weight of the thick paper. Kylo then carefully extracted the documents within, unfolded them; he raised it up, inhaled the faint metallic tang of the still-fresh ink. There was a particular comfort in the words as he re-read them, and in the slant of Hux’s handwriting. He ghosted his fingers over the General’s signature, and felt the initials on his chest throb in adoring sympathy.

Kylo returned to his books, though he kept the contract beside him to re-read at his leisure. He fancied he could hear the absurd and heavy tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway, once again like pacing, anxious feet, but it did not bother him so much as it had before. The pages turned, and the hours stretched on like shadows in the night, and before long Kylo had fallen soundly asleep.

\--

He awoke to a calamitous noise, like a thunderburst right above his head, like some giant beating on the door with a metal hammer. It was very nearly pitch dark, and the was a heavy air of pure malice shrouding him. He was on his feet in a second, his hand flying to where is sabre should have been before he realised it was simply the clock striking midnight, and it was dark because the candles had mostly burned out and the fire had died down. What startled him the most, however, was Hux, perched on the edge of the desk and smiling beatifically at him.

“Unpleasant dreams?” he asked slyly. He was still in his evening suit, and Kylo could smell perfume and cigarette smoke from him. There was a flush in his cheeks, a certain brightness about his eyes that made it hard for Kylo to answer. Hux had been watching him sleep.

He sat back down again and tried to compose himself, though his heart was racing from the sudden start. He tried to blink away his foggy head, wondering if this was not a dream in itself. Hux certainly looked unreal, “No dreams at all. Not tonight.”

“Ah, not even of me? More so the pity,” Hux said. He ran a hand over one of the books at his hip, “Though I am glad you found a way to keep yourself entertained without me.”

The gesture towards the books made Kylo realise that the contract was missing from where he had left it - likely moved by Hux so it would not get lost or damaged, but he still felt as though he had been caught doing something forbidden. He swallowed, and shyly reached to put his hand on Hux’s knee, “And your evening--?”

“Was splendid, actually. The Comtessa really does throw the most charming get togethers. She is a collector of sorts, you see, only she doesn’t collect things such as books and trinkets. Her tastes are a degree more human - not in a vulgar sense, she keeps no slaves for pleasure or otherwise, but she takes an interest in the _interesting_ ,” Hux said. He took a hold of Kylo’s hand and seemed to marvel at his long fingers, “I found one that I like. A little painter. He is going to be the one to paint my portrait.”

“If it pleases you,” Kylo said, and kept his eyes on Hux’s face like he was stargazing, though no celestial being could be half so beautiful. The General seemed amused.

“Oh, it does please me. His name is Piotr, and we are to meet him in the park tomorrow. He sits by the fountain and hawks pocket portraits of the strolling sweethearts, which is where the Comtessa found him. Isn’t that charming?” Hux went on. He linked his fingers with Kylo’s, and kissed him on each knuckle, watching him from beneath pale lashes, “Shall we be strolling sweethearts?” 

“We shall,” Kylo said, and carefully raised himself to his feet. He parted Hux’s legs so that he could stand between them, leaning over the General, brushing his mouth against his brow, his nose, the thin skin under his eyes, and Hux lifted his lips to meet him. Kylo could taste wine in his mouth, wine and something else foreign to him but just as intoxicating. Hux slipped his arms around Kylo’s broad shoulders to coax him closer, inviting him deeper into their kiss.

“If she knew-- if the Comtessa knew what I had, oh she would be sick with envy,” Hux hissed against Kylo’s mouth as he arched his hips, grinding against him most wantonly, “She would kill to have you in her collection; you, my knight. You, of suprasensual soul. You are mine.”

“Yes, General,” Kylo said breathlessly, pushing against him, his fingers working open the buttons of Hux’s handsome suit, though he found himself rendered utterly graceless by teeth grazing his neck, “Oh God, _yes_.”

Hux pushed him away just enough to undo the fastenings to his own trousers, and then turned and leaned across the desk, _presenting_ himself to Kylo who at once lost all sense of what to do. All he could do was stare until he could pull himself back to the present, and he at least had the wherewithal to take Hux by his narrow hips, running his fingers reverently over his marble white skin. He had dimples on the small of his back, something Kylo had never seen before; he gently pressed his thumbs into them, marvelling at the perfect fit, and Hux arched his back with an impatient moan.

“Bottom right drawer. Get it now, hurry,” Hux hissed, though Kylo didn’t understand how the General thought he could do anything at all when he rocked back against Kylo like that, grinding against his achingly hard cock, “ _Ben_.”

The alien name pushed between clenched teeth was enough to redirect him back to the task at hand, and he scrambled to fetch the slick as directed. He had to bite back a moan at the implication when he opened the drawer and found not one but at least half a dozen bottles of oil. He grabbed one that already half empty, and poured it over his fingers, before pushing two into Hux. Careless, yes; impatient, absolutely, but the General moaned throatily at the sudden stretch and burn, his brassy head dropping against the surface of the desk.

Part of Kylo wished for Hux to be entirely without clothes, so that he could see the muscles in his beautiful back shift, tense and flex as he pushed into the luxurious heat of his body; part of him revelled in the depravity of it, of buggering a man in coat-tails over a desk in the middle of the night. Hux apparently enjoy it too, if the way he braced against the edge of the desk for leverage to push back against Kylo and set a punishing pace was anything to judge by.

Kylo tried to retake hold of Hux’s hips to hold him down, to thrust harder and deeper, but Hux caught his wrists and in one firm motion, stood up and forced them to take a step backwards so that the back of Kylo’s knees hit the chair and he folded into it, taking Hux with him. The General rode him like that, facing away from him, trousers pulled down to his thighs and no further, keeping Kylo’s hands trapped against the arms of the chair so he couldn’t so much as reach around and stroke him off.

Hux seemed to love the control he had, able to dictate the speed, the depth, the force, and Kylo - Kylo just wanted to be used.

\--

The following morning Kylo awoke, for the first time ever, in the General’s bed. He had not once been permitted to stay the whole night before, and he was afraid to move or even breathe lest he wake Hux up and face his ire, as he suspected his favour had come from the wine and not the man. It was shortly before dawn and Kylo was sure he had only a few thin hours of sleep, as he often did. He was used to it, and in a way was grateful for the time he had to savour Hux’s unguarded slumber. Kylo so rarely got to examine him in any thorough capacity, often scolded for staring, or accused of gawping.

The peculiar thing about Hux while he slept - one more thing for Kylo to find bemusing and uniquely lovely - was that there was no change in him. There was no softening in the lines of his hard and noble face, no vulnerability in the careless toss of his limbs. He looked no younger, no sweeter than he did while he was awake; in fact, he hardly looked like he was sleeping at all. Waiting, perhaps. Biding his time with his hands curled on his stomach, his head turned a degree to the left and away from Kylo.

Over-come with compelling sentimentality at the rare occasion, Kylo dared to lean over the sleeping General and kissed him softly on the mouth, taking a hold of his chin to turn his head a little. Oh, he didn’t want to wake him but it was too much to be lying beside him like that, so close, so quietly, and not be able to touch him at all. There was an ache in his jaw, a tremor in his hands; he wanted to be inside of him again, wanted to bite at soft yielding flesh, and run his tongue and teeth over acres of skin. He wondered of the General would still be slick and open from their coupling only hours ago, and reached beneath the bedsheets.

A hand clamped around his wrist like a vice, and when he pulled away from the kiss, Hux was staring at him with a cold and unreadable expression that made Kylo wilt.

“You are still here,” Hux observed, needles in his voice, “Well _, if_ you are quite done, at least pretend to be useful and go run me a bath. I feel positively disgusting.”

Scorned and shamed, Kylo slipped from the General’s bed, though when he bent to collect his clothes he was stopped by a sharp noise of disapproval. Hux narrowed his eyes at him and Kylo let the cloth slip from his fingers. He was naked as a babe, and while he was by no means _shy_ , he felt somewhat over exposed to Hux’s keen scrutiny as he crossed the room, making for the door that lead to the washroom of the apartment.

“Stop there,” Hux said, and Kylo froze in the spot midway across the room. He glanced over his shoulder and found the General watching him, propped up on his pillows with an arm behind his head, “Now pose for me.”

Kylo raised a brow, not fully understand, “Sir?”

“If you wish to start the morning with perversions, I intend to have my fun too,” Hux said, “Now pose for me, as if you were a strongman. You have ample body: let me see it.”

Until their meeting, Kylo had never been made to feel the subject of open desire, of physical appreciation. He had never been coveted nor lusted after because of his appearance, at least not to his knowledge. He had been an awkward and ungainly youth, who grew into an inelegant and disproportionate man; he had been desired for his power, his strength, even his violence - but never for his own self. Some of those people had never even seen his face, and would not care to, but Hux-- Hux had seen all of him, mind, body and soul, and watched from his nest of sheets with hunger in his eyes.

It was not the response Kylo had been expecting; though he had no qualms obliging his General’s request, his rare bouts of playfulness could sometimes leave him more ill at ease than his tempestuous moods, particularly when it was the mood he expected more.That said, to be wanted by one man who was wanted by hundreds brought a flush of heat over his body, and he began to stir in interest as he struck one pose and then another, displaying his arms, his back, his chest and legs for the General’s delectation. The unfamiliar movements pulled and pinched at the still-fresh wounds on his breast, making them ache pleasantly.

“That is enough,” Hux said with smile and a lazy wave of his hand, “For now, at least. Go on and run my bath, we have aught to do today.”

Kylo gave a shallow performer’s bow that was met with a scoff, and continued on to the washroom. Much of the room was taken up by a great old-fashioned enamel bath, panelled with blackened mahogany, and warmed by a gas burner attached to one end. It was an old fashioned beast that would take an age to fill and even longer to heat, so he fired up the burner and opened the taps. He sat on the edge of the bath, watching the water slowly rise and begin to steam; he added a little epsom salts and stirred the water with his fingers, enjoying the sensation of it. It was scaldingly hot, far too hot to bathe in, but it would cool down by the time Hux was ready.

Once it was adequately full, Kylo turned off the taps and made to call for Hux to come through, only to find him already standing in the doorway of the washroom, watching him. He was wearing his silken robe and an uncanny smile, and cradled a cup of coffee and matching saucer in his hands. Kylo blinked; he hadn’t heard him leave the apartment, nor had there been remotely enough time to make coffee considering the kitchen stove would be cold.

He dared not question him, but before Kylo could say anything further, Hux handed him the cup and shrugged off his robe which fell to the floor with a whisper. He then gracefully stepped over the side of the bath, and it was the sound of the splash that roused Kylo from his confusion.

“Wait, General! The water’s too--” he began with a fright, sitting the cup down on the floor roughly and reaching to help Hux out of the bath. Hux batted his hand away.

“It’s fine,” he said, and sat down with a care not to slop the water over the side. Kylo stared, concerned. The skin of his own hand had pinkened just from stirring the salts into the water, a few seconds submerged at most, but Hux seemed utterly unperturbed. He leaned back and exhaled deeply through his nose, “Well? Are you going to gawp at me all morning, or help me bathe? I assume that’s why you linger yet.”

Kylo had to wonder whether he was in fact still dreaming or not, but nevertheless took to his knees on the cold, cracked tiles. The water burned him as he worked the hard soap into a lather and set about carefully washing Hux, but soon the itching sting was a half-numb ache he could ignore and focus on the task at hand. It was a wonderful thing to be allowed such intimacy with the General, who reclined in the bath all loose-limbed and heavy lidded, content to let Kylo busy himself. He would suffer any discomfort for the chance, not even boiling oil could have deterred him.

There was something soft about bathing someone like such; something sacred. Kylo remembered the temple maids of Greece and Rome mentioned in the books he had read the previous night, how they dutifully washed the dead, and anointed the sacrifices in perfumes and oils in preparation for their final act of devotion-- but had they ever bathed the Gods themselves? The ones for whom they toiled and bled and suffered, did they ever receive the blessings he did? Kylo revelled in two millennia worth of envious sighs, and smiled against Hux’s shoulder as he passed the cloth over his back.

He could feel it rising in him again, the twinned sensations of ‘too much’ and ‘not enough’ that proximity to Hux so often provoked in him. It made him want to dig his fingers into the flesh he so carefully tended until the perfect white was spoiled by ink-spill bruises, if only to make Hux know what it felt like. It wasn’t that he wanted to hurt him, exactly, but Kylo didn’t know how else to relieve the pressure in his head on his own.

Kylo reached Hux’s wrist, and washed each hand softly. He was admiring the General’s elegant fingers when they curled around his own. He looked up, and Hux was watching him with hazy eyes. The thin grey light of morning made him look every bit as porcelain as the tiles behind his head.

“I love you,” Kylo said. It fell from his lips before he could help himself like over-ripe fruit from the tree.

“Do I make you happy?” Hux asked, letting go of Kylo’s hand to slide it up the back of his neck, threading through the short hairs there.

“Indescribably.”

Hux drew him into a kiss then, one that smouldered, lingered, one that Kylo was all too glad to pour himself into. He clung to the edge of the bath, leaning far enough that he was halfway in it, just so that Hux didn’t have to strain. It was easy to get lost in a kiss such as that, with his mouth was plundered and his lips bitten, when he was kissed until it became hard to breathe, so much so that he barely noticed the hand on his chest until short nail dug into the carved initials there. The half-healed skin parted instantly, the wound re-opening to bleed anew; Kylo grunted in pain and tried to pull away, but found himself held fast by the vice-like grip on his neck. Hux would not let him so much as part lips as he clawed deeper, the bitter salts in the water on his hands setting the wound ablaze. Eventually Kylo managed to get enough purchase to haul himself free from the violent embrace with an exclamation of alarm, and found he had accidentally kicked over the forgotten coffee cup in doing so.

It broke, and spilled its black heart all over the white tiles. Clutching his chest, Kylo stared at it, and then at the General who was inspecting the blood on his hand with mild interest. He pulled his hand beneath the water, and made a blooming rose of pink, pretty in its gruesome way before it quickly dissipated. He sighed and looked back to Kylo.

“The water grows cold,” he said, “Do fetch me some towels. Try not to get too much blood on them.”

\--

It was a fine day outside, with cloud-dappled sunshine and a mild breeze. The park was only a short distance from the house, not more than ten minute’s walk, and as such Hux chose not to take the coach. Kylo felt conspicuous in his old-fashioned footman’s livery in black and white, with knee-britches and white silk stockings, but Hux drew more admiring glances in his uniform. The further they walked from the house, the better Kylo felt. Even the General’s mood seemed to lighten, and at one quiet point along the route he saw fit to link arms with Kylo, and they were very nearly the strolling sweethearts Hux had teased about.

The park itself was unexceptional, though pleasant enough. There was a quad of grass edged on one side by a copse of trees, and by gravel paths and benches along the remaining sides. At one corner there was an open area with a modest fountain, several vendor stands, and a scattering of tables. It was not particularly busy, and as such it was easy enough to point out the artist who they were to meet, the one Hux has called Piotr.

From a distance, he was easily mistaken for a youth at first; coming closer, Kylo saw that he was older, but not by much - barely out of his teens, by his estimation. He had a mop of blond hair curling out from under a flat cap, and a sweet dimple-chinned face thieved from the hands of Botticelli himself. It was hard to guess while the artist was sitting, hunched over his little easel as he was, but he had to be nearly a foot shorter than Kylo himself, the sort of slight build that implied an impoverished childhood, but with the soft roundness of cheek and limb that showed recovery in adulthood.

He seemed completely oblivious to the General’s approach, and they stood observing his total concentration in silence for a moment before Hux grew bored and impatiently cleared his throat. Piotr glanced up once, did a double-take, and shot to his feet like the Emperor himself had appeared. He pulled off his hat and tried to smooth his unruly hair, to little avail.

“General. Please forgive me, I must have lost track of time,” he said in a peculiar breathless sort of manner. He had an accent Kylo couldn’t quite place.

“Not to worry, we are a little early,” Hux said with a slight wave of his hand, “Nevertheless, are you ready?”

Piotr hesitated for a moment, fumbling as though he did not actually know if he was indeed ready, “Oh. Ah. Yes, of course, sir. If you would just give me a moment to collect my things--”

“Leave them,” Hux said. Piotr already had his hand on the back of his small folding stool. He had an assortment of equipment with him: a satchel of oil paints, brushes, several small canvases, including the one he had been working on. It appeared to be two women walking arm in arm, and though he had only began to put colour on it, it was a vivid and intimate scene.

“Sir?” he asked, uncertain whether he had heard him correctly. He looked from Hux to Kylo, his brows contracting like he had only just realised he was there also.

“Am I not to be your patron now? Or so we discussed at the Comtessa’s party,” Hux said, “I will replace these things, I can get you anything you need for the portrait. You shall want for nothing.”

Piotr’s eyes widened at the offer; Kylo was amused that the man couldn’t help but broadcast every thought and emotion that flitted through his mind, “Do you really-- yes, that would be-- that’s very generous of you, sir. Thank you.”

Hux smirked and made the slightest come-hither motion before turning to leave, and Piotr practically jumped to be at his side, hurrying to keep up with the General’s long-legged strides. It was then that Kylo realised, with a cold trickle down his spine, that a spell had been cast on the young man, and that with one curl of the finger he was as much under the control of Hux as Kylo was.

Kylo didn’t know whether to be jealous or fearful for Piotr. Either way, he followed several paces behind them both.

\--

Hux took them to several shops and as promised allowed Piotr to pick what he wanted, then arranged for it all to be delivered to the house so they could move unencumbered. The artist seemed apprehensive about the situation at first, but soon found a childish sort of joy in being spoiled by a handsome older man, and Hux drank up his bubbling gratitude.

They moved on to a coffee shop once he had everything he needed; Hux ordered a black coffee for himself, sweet cream tea and a cake for Piotr, and nothing for Kylo. Kylo did not mind, having already lost what little appetite he had. He sat in silence as the others discussed the details of payment and patronage, a conversation that was mostly Hux talking and Piotr agreeing.

Hux excused himself for a moment to speak with the proprietor of the cafe, leaving Kylo and Piotr alone. Piotr watched him go and seemed anxious for him to return, though he shot Kylo several side-long glances when he thought he was not looking.

“Who are you?” he asked eventually, picking up his empty teacup, turning it over in his small hands nervously.

Kylo frowned at the question, and the abruptness of it, “Ben. I am the General’s footman.”

“Ben,” Piotr repeated, and Kylo hated the name on anyone else’s lips as much as his own, “You have an interesting face, Ben. It would be good for painting.”

Kylo did not expect the compliment, if it was one, and did not know what to say to it - so in his usual fashion, he said nothing at all. His silence did not seem to deter Piotr whatsoever, who now stared at him quite brazenly until Hux returned, at which point his attention was instantly stolen away.

Hux seemed agitated by whatever the outcome of his conversation with the cafe owner had been. Both men knew better than to think twice when he ordered them both out and into the nearest cab.

\--

A room on the second floor was arranged for Piotr, beside the study and facing the street outside where there would be the best light for most of the day. It was a workshop of sorts, stocked with everything he could have possible required to paint the perfect portrait. There was even a cot set up for him, though Hux had advised him that was for use only if really necessary.

“I am your patron, not your landlord,” he said tartly as he watched Piotr and Kylo set out all the things he had purchased that day.

Piotr agreed earnestly, and once again thanked Hux for his boundless generosity. His cheeks were flushed with excitement, and he invited Kylo to marvel at the items with him; _Ben, look how pigmented these are, how beautiful!_ as he pried open boxes of oils and pastels to show off the colours. _Ben, feel how soft these brushes are, real sable!_ as he ghosted one across the back of Kylo’s hand.

Kylo wanted to call him a fool and demand to be left alone, but with Hux watching, he did not dare. He settled for a grunt of acknowledgement, and setting down boxes and easles with a little more force than necessary. Piotr didn’t seem to notice.

\--

In the first sitting, Hux opted for his full dress uniform rather than mess dress, which was the fashion for portraits at the time. He was hung with full braids and medals, complete with cap, though he forwent his ceremonial sabre in favour of his trusty wooden cane - the same one that had tasted Kylo’s skin with a thousand licks. Kylo had been the one to dress him. He could hardly stand to look at him, lest he couldn’t control himself in front of the artist. His legs already felt treacherous as he stood sentinel by the door, as though they would give way at any second.

Something was bothering Piotr, however. Shortly after putting charcoal to canvas he began to fidget and sigh, and was frowning quite severely. Kylo could only see a small sliver of the canvas from his position, but there was very little on it other than a few bold sweep carving out the rough blocks of the General’s body.

“Is something the matter?” Hux asked eventually. Kylo could tell he was very close to losing his patience, and was surprised he had made it so long without snapping at either of them.

“Forgive me, sir. It is your face--” Piotr began, and seemed to struggle to pick the right words, “Your expression, I mean. I intend no offense, only there is none of the light there I saw at the Comtessa’s party. It is very...flat, you look bored. This is not good for a portrait.”

Hux exhaled through his nose, “So? I _am_ bored, and you are a painter, so paint it the way it should be. Use your imagination if you must.”

“With anything else, that would be true but faces, sir - it isn’t so. It would look unnatural,” Piotr explained, and then added in a softer voice, “It must be perfect.”

Hux was silent for a moment while a considered a solution, and then a change came over him - a change so subtle that anyone who wasn’t trained to recognise it would have missed it. Anyone by Kylo. He saw the way his back straightened slightly and his shoulders drew back; he saw the impish ghost of a smile on his lips, and how without a change of expression his eyes suddenly seemed cold. A shiver ran down down Kylo’s spine, one of both fear and sweet anticipation.

“Ben, come here,” Hux said, his voice laced with danger. Kylo approached, his gaze fixated on the way in which the General ran the rod through his leather-clad fingers, “Remove your shirt and kneel before me.”

Kylo did as he was told, his head bowed low so Piotr couldn’t see the colour rising in his cheeks. He could feel the young man’s gaze heavy on the cuts of his chest that he wore like the General wore his war medals. Hux made a soft noise of approval, and drew the end of the cane along the uneven line of Kylo’s jaw thoughtfully.

“Since I am feeling particularly generous today, I shall let you choose: back or chest?” he asked.

Kylo wet his lips, “Back please, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Hux laughed, a brittle and jarring sound like breaking glass, “Very well, slave. Down you go.”

Kylo folded himself into a deep kowtow, his head to the floor so that he could see neither Hux nor Piotr. The anticipation of the first blow was nearly as delicious and terrible as the bite of it landing; the gasp that followed it immediately came not from his own lips, but from the artist’s, who presumably hadn’t believed Hux would carry out the action. The next blows fell in rapid succession, an orderly process along the breadth of his shoulders that sent waves of heat shivering through his body.

The cane did not cause so much pain as Kylo’s favoured short whip, but the whistle of its swing was as beautiful as any song to him, and he had to worry his bottom lip between teeth to stop himself carelessly calling out in ecstasy. He arched his back to offer more willing flesh to Hux’s punishment, craving the near-overwhelming sensations, the kiss-like touch. When Kylo opened his eyes, all he could see was the toe of Hux’s boots inches from his face. Unable to swallow his gratitude along with his moans, he dared to reach out and a press reverent kiss to the black leather.

“Pathetic,” Hux noted with an insolent laugh, and planted his boot square between Kylo’s abused shoulder blades, forcing him ever closer to the floor and keeping him trapped there, pinned and struggling to breathe. He then turned to glance at Piotr, “Well, boy? Is this the face you desire?”

Kylo could barely see Piotr through welling tears. The painter had went terribly pale as he stared, devouring the scene with his beautiful blue eyes, lips parted but struck dumb. He was frozen in stupefication, the stick of charcoal clenched so tightly in trembling fingers it was in danger of breaking. His breath escaped him in the softest of moans as he seemed to recover some of his senses.

“Yes, General,” he said, eyes wide, panicked. He began to draw again in frantic strokes, “Yes, sir. It’s perfect. God help me, it’s perfect.”

\--

In the beginning Piotr came only a few times a week, with each sitting lasting a couple of hours and following much along the lines of the first sitting: they would set up, Hux would perform some sort of act upon Kylo, and Piotr would would watch and add the General’s cruel fervour to the very fabric of the painting itself. It was absurd, bordering on surreal, but it seemed to suit all parties involved. It didn’t take long for the original commission to be fulfilled with such an arrangement, after which Piotr literally begged Hux to be allowed to paint what he called _real_ art, painting him for pleasure rather than purpose - free of charge, of course.

Hux consented to it, for whatever reason - vanity, boredom, or a more sinister impulse, Kylo didn’t know. In these new session, sometimes he was permitted to watch, and sometimes he was used as a prop, or even a model - under Hux’s guidance, Piotr discovered a love of using Kylo’s face for his solemn, sad-eyed martyrs. There were also the occasions when the canvas went forgotten entirely as Piotr lost himself, enraptured as he watched Hux force Kylo to his knees, bring knives and whips to his skin, feed him soft fruit and laudanum, and kiss the blood and sugar and bitterness from his pleading lips.

The days began to merge into one long blur of pain, pleasure, and the muddling maudlin haze of over-indulgence. Kylo was increasingly privy to less and less of the painting sessions. Piotr would arrive - if he had even left the house from the last session - and together with Hux would disappear into the studio or the study for hours at a time.

Every time Kylo met Piotr as he left, he looked a little greyer, a little less vital. He wondered if the same changed had came over himself, but remembered there was no-one there to see it happen either way.

Kylo was left to haunt the hallway in brooding dispassion, pacing the worn floorboards, going from the new towering portrait of Hux, beautiful, cruel, elegant in his dress uniform, to the looming grandfather clock by the stairs. The fear, the lingering dread that surrounded the clock was the only thing that still seeped through the fog, and Kylo pushed as close to it as he dared if only to feel it settle in his chest like icy fingers gripping his lungs.

\--

Kylo lay in his bed in his cold, bare room. On the wall across from him, bells were ringing - or one bell was, rather. Every few seconds, the bell for the study shivered and shook like a fat silver beetle, demanding his attention. He ignored it for as long as he dared, feeling weighted down by ennui, aggravated by the knowledge Piotr was alone with Hux in the study to which he was being summoned.

The bell could only be ignored for so long, however; its urgent shrill chiming was like a needle to his skull, and he could already feel Hux’s disapproval seeping through the ceiling. He raised himself from his low bed, his abused body protesting vehemently with each minute movement. He could feel every welt and bruise that marked him, and even his low mood could not choke the thrill he got from that, the measure of satisfaction.

Hux’s portrait seemed to smirk down at him from its perch on the wall at the end of the hallway, goading him as he once again found himself lingering on the other side of the door. He could hear the service bell inside, still incessantly ringing. Kylo knocked twice and entered.

Inside, Hux was sitting on a low ottoman. Piotr was lying beside him, his head cradled in Hux’s lap. He had been divested of his jacket, his shirt was wholly unbuttoned, and his britches were open and pushed low on his hips. At first Kylo thought he was asleep, only to realise his eyes were open and unfocused. Hux stroked his soft blond curls with a calm and steady rhythm. It might have been almost tender if it wasn’t for the tear-tracks on Piotr’s cheeks.

“You are late,” Hux said, and his voice was quiet as though he didn’t want to wake Piotr, who was not asleep, “I rang for you.”

“I apologise, sir. I was asleep,” Kylo said. His mind stoutly refused to acknowledge that Hux was nowhere near the rope for the service bell that had been ringing right up until he opened the door.

“It’s of little consequence,” he said, and brushed his knuckles along Piotr’s jaw, “Our little maestro here is-- tired. I need you to carry him through to his studio, I also wish to retire for the evening.”

Kylo approached and gathered the young artists in his arms. He was as light and limp as a doll, and no sound but a shallow breath passed his lips. Hux stood once he was free of him, and pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of Kylo’s mouth as he slipped another glass vial into his pocket. He left the room without another word, and Kylo waited until the General’s footsteps no longer fell in the hallways before he too exited the study.

It was a moonless night and the unlit studio was disorientatingly dark despite its full windows. Kylo left the door ajar behind him so that the wall fixtures outside the room lent him enough ruddy light to find the cot and set Piotr down on it. He turned, glanced around the room. It was crowded with canvases, easels, some shrouded and some not. Kylo had to admit some modicum of curiosity, if only because he had been banished from the sittings in which so many of them had been painted.

He browsed the canvases closest to the door, the ones with the best light, all images of Hux, of course. Some were finished portraits, and fairly standard ones at that, plenty of Hux as figures throughout the ages, Hux reclining sensually on a chaise lounge, Hux watching the viewer over the lip of a crystal wine glass as though he’d been caught mid-sip. Piotr’s talent was undeniable, the likeness in each painting was startling, uncanny almost, but the further he browsed from the door, the stronger than uncanny feeling grew.

The colour palette contracted to shades of black, white, and slashes of deep, vivid red. The careful, deliberate lines and shapes began to shake, to tremble with a manic form. Many of the canvases were just studies: faces without features, eyes without a face, hands without arms. Bloody lips, bloody fingers, bloody teeth bared in a snarl, or a grin, or a grimace of pain. It was unwholesome, and set Kylo on edge. He recovered the final canvas he could bare to look at - one with a single black eye, limpid and wet in a way that made him think of the word _slither_ , staring out from a stark white background - and turned back to Piotr on the low cot.

Piotr was watching him. His pupils were like pin-pricks but they still followed Kylo as he came back to crouch beside him. Kylo leaned closer to him, so close their lips were almost touching, and took a shallow breath. The bitter alcoholic tang was unmistakable.

“Laudanum,” he said, “He’s giving you my laudanum.”

Of course Piotr didn’t reply; it was unlikely he even knew where he was, nevermind what was happening. Kylo cast a jealous eye over the artist’s general state of disarray, and wondered how he ended up in such a state, and if he should cover him. He didn’t.

“Is this what he does when you are alone?” he whispered. He ran a hand over the soft strip of bare chest, up to his neck. When he turned Piotr’s head to the side, he found bruises there, marks from fingers and ligaments alike, “He’s making you sick. He’s hurting you. Do you like it?”

Kylo pressed his fingers into the dark spots already mapped out on pale skin; there was something morbidly romantic about retracting Hux’s steps, almost like holding hands. Piotr made a small noise of confusion, maybe panic. It annoyed Kylo more than it warranted.

“You want to like it, because _he_ likes it, and you want him. But, you’re weak. You’re not like me,” Kylo went on. He pressed harder, putting the weight of his body behind his hands, “I can show you what real pain is.”

Piotr began to squirm and thrash weakly beneath Kylo, his hands bumping uselessly against his chest like he sought to push him off. His pale lashes fluttered, the dying spasms of a moth on a windowsill, one that had battered itself to death against the glass. Despite the threat, he felt no pain - Kylo was quite sure he felt no pain - and as his body began to sag into unconsciousness, a rush of red rose in his pallid cheeks like the blush of first love.

Kylo let go before the act was done and sat back on his heels, breathing heavily as though having just completed some great feat of athletics. His heart was racing, and he found himself to be unexpectedly aroused, though he neglected such a vulgar feeling. He checked beneath Piotr’s lids, and there laughed his blue eyes without a stain. He held his ear to his slack lips, and felt the laboured rasp of a bruised breath.

He yet lived, and Kylo did not know if that was Hux’s intended plan. Did he mean for Piotr to die? Or was this perhaps another task set to torment him? To test his loyalty? Kylo pulled back further from the cot where the artist lay, his head lolling to the side as if sleeping. If he was to die, let it be another night. Let it be by guided hands. Kylo feared Hux more than he loathed any rival.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta reader has kindly informed me this chapter is a little confusing towards the end but I promise it will make (slightly more) sense in the next chapter. In the meantime, if you want to ask me anything or even just chat in general, hit me up at [broodmother](broodmother.tumblr.com).


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for dubious consent via coercion in this chapter, as well as mentions of death/murder.
> 
> This chapter is regretfully unbeta'd so please excuse my numerous mistakes.

“Delilah, an opulent woman with flaming red hair, lay extended, half disrobed in a dark fur cloak, upon a red ottoman, and bent smiling over Samson who had been overthrown and bound by the Philistines. Her smile in its mocking coquetry was full of a diabolical cruelty; her eyes, half closed, met Samson’s, and his with a last look of insane passion clung to hers, for already one of his enemies is kneeling on his breast with the red-hot iron to blind him.”

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, _ Venus in Furs _

\--

If Piotr could remember anything from that night, he gave no indication, nor did Hux give any clue as to his intentions, imagined or otherwise. Life in the red house continued as it had for some time, and it seemed only Kylo was left to tiptoe around their vulgar routine, feeling wary even though nothing had changed. Hux still kept him turned around in a cycle of neglect and bruising, brutal love; Piotr still observed him at arm’s length with the sort of half-guilty voyeuristic interest one had when watching travelling freak shows. 

The wheel finally began to turn when Hux had the grand idea for one final staged portrait, as he appeared to be growing weary of near daily sittings and sessions. He intended it to be a gift for Kylo, or so he claimed: a depiction of the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, posed in the strangely sensual style of the murals from his childhood monastery. Kylo was to be the saint, of course, and Hux the archer piercing him through with Cupid’s arrows. 

Piotr was quite charmed by the gesture, and even Kylo did not find himself entirely opposed to it. It appealed to his nature, and sluggishly brought to light a deep seated sleeping fantasy, one that threaded through his formative years like a vein of gold, to which Hux would happily bring a pickaxe. 

The scene was set in Hux’s rooms rather than the studio, since they sought to make use of one of the pillars from the canopied bed instead of the tree trunk to which Sebastian was tied. Kylo was trussed like a hunting trophy, tied with his hands bound above his head, pulling taut the long lines of his body. He was forced to stay on the balls of his feet, or risk putting a dangerous strain on his shoulder. Piotr waited by his easel, sorting through pencils and charcoals; Hux was content to waste a little time admiring Kylo’s pose. 

“Perfect. Perhaps I ought to keep you like this around the house, your new footman’s garb,” he said as he ran his hands appreciatively up Kylo’s abdomen. He was barefoot and had been stripped to the waist, while Hux was disarming in a dove grey day suit, “What do you think, Piotr? The uniform is nice enough but it is all too easy to forget the body beneath.”

Piotr glanced up and met Kylo’s eye over Hux’s shoulder while the General was still admiring his saint. He held his gaze for a few seconds, then went back to sorting his paints, “Of course, General.”

Hux smiled and patted Kylo’s stomach, “Well, you just wait here. I will be back presently, I seem to be missing the one thing no archer should be without.”

With a last lingering look, Hux left the room and closed the door behind him. All was frightfully quiet aside from the lick of the fire on new wood, and the irregular click of Piotr cleaning his brushes in a jar of turpentine. The smell of it turned made Kylo’s lip curl in disgust, even from where he was tied in place. 

“Sorry,” Piotr muttered once he took notice. He shook off the excess turpentine from the brushes and closed the jar, “Just trying to keep my hands busy.”

Kylo had noted he appeared to be preoccupied and more tense than usual. Dark circles that gathered under his eyes like rainclouds told of several sleepless nights, and he had the pallor of ill health about him. Kylo assumed it was from Hux’s decision to find a new way to amuse himself and though he lacked any degree of sympathy for him, he could not blame Piotr for sharing in the persistent foreboding feeling that their precarious and dangerous arrangement could not simply  _ end _ , as though it was Sunday brunch or a business meeting - unless Hux did not intend for it to end, not in the sense they were thinking, which was a dreadful threat in its own right.

Kylo resented the artist for bringing such powerful uncertainty to his life; he was an unknown agent in the flow of Hux’s capriciousness, and his influence dashed Kylo’s careful divination of his moods and wants. 

With his hands unoccupied and Hux absent, Piotr was staring at Kylo again in that same brazen starry-eyed manner from the cafe on the first day they had met, as though he was seeing him for the very first time. He stepped around his easel and approached Kylo, who did not care for his sudden boldness.When reached out to touch the scars on his chest, Kylo pressed himself against the pillar, and he would have kicked out if his feet were not also bound.

“Did it hurt so very much?” Piotr asked as his fingers brushed over the raised marks. The lines were nearly healed by that point, though they were still tender, and Kylo set his jaw against the mild discomfort. He had no intention of answering his banal question, and he jealously guarded the memory of the pain like a coveted pearl clenched in his hand, “I have wanted to ask you for some time now, but I wonder if I might never have another chance.”

Piotr flattened his palm against Kylo’s chest, marvelling at the firm flesh and uneven texture. He did not seem to mind the lack of verbal response; instead, he was transfixed by the scars, and by the almost absurd difference between himself and Kylo. His hand seemed so petit as he let his touch drift along the ravine of one of Kylo’s collarbones, and he had to lift his chin to look up at his face. 

“At first I thought he was making you do this. I could not understand how someone might do it willingly, certainly not a man such as you,” Piotr said. He wet his lips, “Now I think I understand.”

“You understand nothing,” Kylo hissed, jerking against his restraints. He wanted Piotr to step away, to stop touching him; this wasn’t right, it wasn’t  _ allowed _ . Who would be so brazen as to lay hands on another man’s property, right there in his home!

“Ben--” Piotr began, his voice edged and imploring as he leaned closer, but he was cut off when an arrow struck the mattress inches from Kylo’s thigh with enough force to bury half the shaft. Piotr stared at it, his eyes going as round as pennies before he spun to face Hux who was standing in the doorway, a shortbow in hand. 

The General smiled a terrible smile that spread like a rot across his face, and lowered the bow. Piotr had went very still, as though if he didn’t move then Hux would not spot him. Kylo pulled harder at his restraints, and wondered if it was worth breaking his thumb to slip free and escape.

“Did you know that Saint Sebastian was not slain by arrows?” Hux said in a chillingly genial manner as he approached. He tossed aside his prop without a care, “While he was certainly  _ pricked _ , he did not die, and was nursed back to health by Irene of Rome. No, instead he met his final end when he returned from the grave to pester Emperor Dioclenes once again and was clubbed to death for his troubles. It’s a little harder to heal a caved skull, apparently.”

He stopped in line with Piotr and pressed himself up against his back. He reached around him to stroke his smooth cheek fondly, and brought his lips to his ear.

“Tell me, little Irene; what do you think of our daring Sebastian here?” he whispered, “Do you wish to heal him? Do you _lu_ _ st _ for him?”

Piotr shuddered, and Kylo couldn’t tell if he was pulling away from Hux as he squirmed, or backing against him, “General, please, I was not--”

“Do not lie to me,” Hux hissed. He seized Piotr by the jaw and turned his head with a violent jerk, forcing him to look at Kylo, “I told you before, lying will make me most displeased.”

As tears welled in the artist’s eyes and his face flushed a shameful red, Kylo wondered with alarm and some shade of morbid fascination if he also wore such a devastating look when he was mistreated. After a moment, Piotr nodded as much as Hux’s grip would allow him. 

“Would you like to touch him? To run your gifted little hands all over him?” Hux asked, relaxing his hold slightly. 

Another nod from Piotr; a sharp intake of breath from Kylo. With gentle encouragement, he put his hands on him as he had before, exploring the broad planes of Kylo’s body with only the slightest tremor in his touch. Hux pushed him closer.

“Kiss him, if you so wish,” he said with a soft, knifing insistence that spoke of how little choice Piotr had in the matter, “He won’t resist you.”

It nearly took more strength than Kylo had not to turn his head aside as Piotr rocked onto his toes to brush their mouths together, his lithe arms clinging to his shoulders for purchase. If Hux said he would not resist, then he could not resist. He let Piotr drink from his lips like a sweet wine, and all the while could not tear his eyes from the General.

Hux reached over Piotr’s head and with the same vendetta blade that carved the initials into his flesh, cut loose the ropes that bound him. With the action repeated at his ankles, Kylo was free - in a sense. He did not desire to lay his hands on the painter, nor to encourage him, and there was no hope of removing him; his fingers tangled themselves in his own hair and stayed there, pulling at the root in the hopes that the pain would relieve the growing pressure pushing at the inside of his skull.

“Undress him. Lay him on the bed,” Hux went on, folding away the blade as he came around the side of the bed to his dressing table and opened one of the drawers to fetch something from it. He was addressing Kylo now, “If he wants you, he can have you.”

There was an undercurrent of cruelty in his faux-indifference that raised the hair on Kylo’s arms as he stiffly unbuttoned Piotr’s shirt. His shoulders ached and there was a slight pricking numbness in his fingertips from being bound; usually, he enjoyed the sensation. At that moment, it only made him feel clumsy and graceless. He could sense Hux’s growing impatience pressing on them, and he knew the General was seething.

Piotr did not try to meet Kylo’s eye as he was manoeuvred onto the bed, and Kylo kept his own gaze lowered somewhere around the artist’s slim shoulder as he pawed at him hopelessly. He did not know what he was supposed to be doing, and Piotr didn’t seem to know what he wanted, if he really wanted anything at all. What was expected? What was allowed?

His momentary hesitation was answer by the unexpected kiss of a whip across the small of his back, igniting a line of fire that made him jerk and gasp. 

“Stop playing the blushing virgin and attend to him, Ben,” Hux said sharply, kneeling on the edge of the bed with Kylo’s favoured short whip in hand. He tossed a bottle of oil onto the pillow by Piotr’s head, “Pretend it is me, if you have to.”

How could he pretend it was Hux when his body was so soft, so small and young? Barely a man, never mind a god. There was none of the demanding heat, none of the uncompromising hunger; Piotr lay meekly with his head to the side and his neck exposed, his hands curled loosely on Kylo’s shoulders. Kylo closed his eyes and bit a kiss at the corner of his jaw, adding another mark to the scattering of bruises there already. The noise it pulled from Piotr was almost worth it.

Kylo divested himself of trousers first, then Piotr; he pushed his slender thighs further apart so he could situate himself between them. He was not gentle, and he felt he did not need to be, that a soft and sweet touch would far more bruising. He wanted it to hurt, but not like that. As Kylo reached for the bottle of oil, he made the mistake of looking over at Hux. 

The General had one knee on the bed, one foot on the floor; the whip gripped tightly in a fist and the other hand was down the front of his britches, moving in an unmistakable manner. He didn’t stop or so much as change his pace when he noticed Kylo was watching him. He smiled - or rather, he flashed his teeth - and traced the whip along Kylo’s thigh in mimicry of a lover’s caress.

“Focus,” he said, and struck him sharply.

Kylo could feel the heat of it spreading, glowing in the sweetest way. Focus, focus - blessed love, how could he focus when Hux was watching him like a wolf watched sheep, whip in hand, teeth bared? The bow had been cast aside but Kylo still felt pierced by a hail of arrows. 

He poured a little of the oil over his hand, and a little of himself into Piotr. The artist’s fingers curled around his arms as Kylo’s fingers curled inside of him, not exploring, nor caressing, but simply working. He fancied that even here Piotr felt so very different from Hux; tighter, certainly, tighter than Kylo had ever known Hux to be and yet not as hot. Little Piotr had no furnace inside of him, though his chest rose and fell like overworked bellows as he struggled to breath through the discomfort and rising panic. 

Kylo gave little thought towards comforting him. He hooked his hands behind his knees, pushing his legs up and apart, exposing him so completely. Piotr squirmed as he tried to bring his thighs together to hide his hard cock that curved against his soft belly, more tears dampening the wispy hair at his temples. Kylo wondered if in some other life he might have desired the painter like so, or if he even desired him then, but it all seemed so insignificant. What he wanted did not matter; what was a match in comparison to a forest fire?

Piotr forced his name through clenched teeth as Kylo pushed into him - no, not his name: Ben’s name. Kylo put his hand over the artist’s mouth as though he sought to stuff the sullen sickly syllable back inside, and was whipped for it; he kissed him silent instead, folded over him like a feeding ghoul, crushing the air from struggling lungs as he ignored the blood beading on his back. He could cling to the heat, cling to the pain, because even if they were not  _ his _ heat and  _ his _ pain, they were still something to get lost in.

Kylo came inside Piotr, and Hux finished on Kylo’s abused back, the salted seed making his welts and whipped wounds sing. Neither of them seemed to care if Piotr had came or not, and it seemed neither did Piotr; his cock was soft and slick, trapped against his stomach and entirely neglected. All he could do was cling to Kylo, shivering weakly as he pulled out and rolled to the side.

“Oh,” the artist said softly, curling in on himself at the loss of him, gripping his own arms across his chest, “Oh, oh.”

Having tucked himself back inside in trousers and cast the whip aside to join the bow, Hux joined them in lying on the bed so that the artists was trapped between him and Kylo. Seconds after such shameless debauchery and he already looked so composed, so collected that he may as well have just returned from an evening stroll. He coaxed Piotr to lean into him, and stroked the young man’s damp curls until he became calm.

“Did you like that?” he asked, brushing a thumb across his cheek, catching the tears there.

Piotr nodded weakly, “Yes, General.”

“Was it the best you have ever had?” he went on, his hand moving down along Piotr’s side like he was petting the flank of some flighty half-wild creature. At that moment, Kylo remained as still as possible, his breathing light and shallow, gaze demurely turned aside. He knew better than to call attention to himself when he could still taste Hux’s anger like blackpowder.

Again Piotr nodded, a stiff, uncertain little movement, “Yes, General.”

“Good. That’s good,” Hux murmured, and slowly pushed two fingers into him without grace or warning; Piotr choked, and grabbed onto the front of Hux’s soft grey suit, blinking wetly through the pain. He must have felt raw, Kylo though. He must have felt so used. Hux withdrew his fingers and examined the pearly seed that glistened there; he wiped in off on Piotr’s thigh, “I would savour it while you can, if I were you. This will be the first and only time you will ever touch or be touched by Ben. In fact, if I catch wind of you so much as speaking to him outside of my presence, you will not leave this house alive. Do you understand?”

The fist in Hux’s suit jacket slackened. There was a final defeated nod. 

“Yes, General.”

\--

Kylo spent many tortured hours waiting for his punishment for his complicity, or perhaps even blame, in Piotr’s misplaced attention. Every time he was with Hux, he felt it looming over head like a pendulous blade swinging only on a thread. His displeasure would fall eventually and split Kylo right down the middle, he was sure - and yet, it never came. Hux was increasingly absent from the house as he attended to his own business, but when he was there, he was in seemingly good spirits and was happy enough to humour Kylo with a little time and a little company.

Though no brush had been brought to canvas since the final botched sitting, Piotr yet remained in the house. He was mostly confined to his room, and Kylo was glad to see him only rarely. It pleased him to be back in his master’s favour, but he still much wished the other man to be gone from them already. He did not know why he yet lingered; it had been a while since Hux had called for his presence, between his time with Kylo and his evening outside of the house.

It was during one such evening when they next spoke, much to Kylo’s dismay. He had spent the day with Hux in his apartment where they had played a most marvellous game, in which Kylo had been forbidden from using his hands or feet. The General had sent him around the room on errands to fetch books and pens and all sorts, and had laughed gaily at his struggles. It had went on until the hour was late and Hux had to change into his evening attire; he bid Kylo undress him with just his teeth and, of course, that had lead from one thing to another.

Kylo smiled to himself as he descended from Hux’s rooms, intending to head to the kitchens. The General had long since came and went, so to speak, and had left his jaw with a long-lingering pleasant ache. His tender thoughts of fingers twisting in his hair were interrupted when the door to the studio opened and Piotr appeared, looking grey faced and tired.

Kylo gave him a wide berth as he passed, intending to soundly ignore him, but Piotr took a half step-forward as though he meant to stop him; when Kylo shot him a sharp glare, he retreated that half-step again. 

“You were right,” he said, his voice as uncertain as his expression was troubled, “I was a fool to think I understood. What is this but  _ folie à deux _ ? There is no understanding madness.”

“Perhaps you should leave,” Kylo said, his hands curling into fists. If he was so ungrateful, if it was all so wretchedly distasteful, then he could go. 

“Perhaps I should,” Piotr said, “Indeed I wish I could but god preserve me, I fear I cannot. It is as if I am an animal, caught in a snare.”

Kylo snorted derisively and made to leave, “Chew your leg off, then; I care not either way.”

Piotr had the gall to cross the corridor and grabbed Kylo by the forearm before he could reach the stairs, “You know what he does. You know the hold he has over men.”

The pitiful, half-pleading keen to his voice and the unwarranted hold on his arm sparked in Kylo a sudden and violent anger. He wrenched himself from Piotr’s grip and shoved him forcefully, rounding on him until he had backed him all the way to the door from whence he had emerged.

“Why are you telling me this? What is it you want from me? What is it you want from him?” he demanded, and Piotr cowered from him. His submissive cringing only further irritated Kylo. What a ridiculous child of a man! “You hang off the end of the dinner table, begging for scraps of attention, and for what? Hux will  _ never _ love you.”

“Love?” Piotr said, utterly in disbelief, “If this is love, I would not wish it upon my worst enemy. If this is love, then let me die an old and lonely bachelor! Ben, this is not love, this is a sickness. He’s wasting you away, he’s using you up. He’s going to be the death of you - of both of us.”

Kylo’s flash-fire temper flared and died as quickly as it had arrived, and left him feeling cold, for a flicker of movement at the corner of his eye had caught his attention, one at which he refused to look, because he knew there was nobody and nothing behind them but Hux’s smirking portrait.  _ Death, death, death. _ Did it really echo so? Kylo swallowed around the sensation of a boot on the back of his neck, and when he spoke, he did so without venom, “Hold your tongue, or lose it.”

Forsaking the warning, Piotr clung to the front of his shirt, increasingly desperate, “One cannot go while the other stays; he would never let the other go, he would kill him. He would kill you - perhaps not that day, or the day after, but eventually. The only way out would be to both leave. Do you understand?”

“If you left today, your absence would not even be felt. You would not be missed, and the General and I would continue as we were: in happiness and grace. You are not a part of this. Do  _ you _ understand? I am not ensnared, I asked for it. Infact, I begged for it,” Kylo said, though it was against his better judgement to continue entertaining the conversation.

“Is that what he tells you?” 

“No. No, Hux told you not to talk to me,” Kylo said, because the heaviness on his chest and shoulders was yet growing, and he was struggling to breathe. He knocked Piotr’s hands away, and this time when he turned to leave, the artist did not follow, “He  _ told _ you.”

The ghastly clock’s heavy-hearted tick matched him foot for foot as he descended the stairs, his back straight and his head up as though he was not fighting the urge to curl up and under the oppressive force of-- what? Guilt? Or something else. He didn’t look back at Piotr, though he could feel him standing at the door watching him go, and nor did he head to the kitchens as he had originally planned. Instead, Kylo retreated to his room and closed the door. The cold and the dark was the closest thing he had to a refuge, without Hux.

\--

The peculiar conversation with Piotr had planted in Kylo a slight yet persistent feeling of unrest, in a similar manner in which a speck of grit could cause exaggerated discomfort once noticed. He knew it was imagined, a feeling inflamed by Piotr’s unfortunate insistence on lingering still, and yet it cause an ugly swelling of thought he sought to be rid of, so Kylo proposed to wait until Hux seemed to be in a particularly fine mood so that he might beg of him a remedy.

One such occasion presented itself shortly thereafter, when Hux returned from some such function or fundraiser bearing a gift: a box of dark chocolates given to him by an admirer, who claimed they were as bittersweet as Hux himself. Of course this had amused him terribly, so much so that he brought them home to share with Kylo. Kylo cared little for sweets, but was delighted to feed from his master’s hand as chocolate after chocolate was so daintily pressed to his lips. Reclining in a chaise lounge while Kylo knelt on the floor, Hux stroked his hair and tweaked his ears, and spoke of how unbearably fond he was of his most loyal footman.

Kylo thought he was in heaven, if only for a while. He also thought there would be no better time to broach his question.

“General, may I ask a favour of you?” he asked, not lifting his head from the lap where it lay.

“You may,” Hux said, “Though I may not deign to grant it.”

“Your recent endeavour in raising funds and support for your weapon and the war effort has me long thinking on my own duties, which I feel as if I have come to gravely neglect. I thought, if you would so allow me, that I might contact my Knights and receive word on how our plans progress without my presence,” Kylo said in what he hoped was a most sensible and appealing manner.

Hux laughed, and then after a theatrical pause, he laughed again yet louder, “Oh goodness, Ben, you are actually being serious. No, I do not think I will so allow you! What an absurd notion.”

Kylo squirmed in helpless frustration, “If only that I might let them know I am at least alive and well!”

“And how so? Good day merry gentlemen, go glad in the knowledge your master is now another man’s slave? How loathsome. Better that you were dead or disappeared entirely than give any clue as to this life. Do you not recall how the two in the carriage looked at you when I put hands on you, and made you squirm and blush like a milkmaid? With even this meagre glimpse, their esteem drop so much so they chose to leave you at  _ my _ command,” Hux said, and every word was a razor blade even as hands lovingly petted his head like a favoured dog, “Besides, they are no longer your Knights, nor your plans, your duties - they are mine. You agreed to such when you signed the contract, or have you forgotten already?”

“General--”

Kylo could not even finish his final plea before Hux twisted his hand in his hair and shoved him violently from his person with such a force that he was sent sprawling on the floor. 

“For God’s sake, why do I find myself repeating myself! If I say no, you say ‘yes, sir’. Must you really spoil every good evening with such petty disobedience!” Hux said as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Kylo desperately scrabbled to reach him again, to grovel for forgiveness, but Hux chased him away with a swift kick, “No, you’ve ruined it again. Get off me, get out. Go and give me peace.”

\--

Some time later, Kylo lay in his narrow bed and watched the shadows on his ceiling twist and tremble, black fingers of dread stretching down, staying always just out of reach. The silver serving bells on the wall rang, sometimes one-by-one as though someone was running from room to room to tug the ropes in succession, sometimes all at once, sometimes randomly. The chimes were soft, as though he was hearing them in a different room entirely and not just feet away, but they were persistent.

Kylo didn’t move to answer them. Hux had went out again and was yet to return home.

He turned on his side to face the blank wall and wished dearly that his room had a window, so that he could look out over the trees and the dreary grey street. He hadn’t been allowed out of the house since the stroll to the park, and while he supposed he wanted for nothing, he did miss his nightly excursions in the gardens when sleep eluded him, and his illness tormented him. He missed the thin mountain air and the shroud of black-green forest; he missed broken Aphrodite and her whole, unwholesome Ares.

He had not dreamt of Ares in some time. In fact, he hardly dreamt of anything any more. He wondered what that meant. Recovery, perhaps? Or over-medication, more likely, but what a price to pay. What an insignificant price for love - true love, real love, love that crushed his ribcage and crippled him. He was bound and shackled, but he was sure he was more at peace now than he had ever been.

Oh, but wouldn’t it be nice to feel cool marble against hot skin just once more?

\--

Kylo did not remember falling asleep but when he awoke, the shadows had stopped their restless churning, and the bells were still ringing - or rather, one was: the one that insisted on his presence in Hux’s quarters. He considered it for a moment, and realised that it was not part of his mania, and that Hux must have arrived home while he was sleeping. 

When he opened the door to leave his room, he very nearly closed it immediately, because once he crossed the threshold into the hall, he knew something was dreadfully wrong. The lights had all been turned as low as they could so that rather than illuminating the hallway, they cast it in a feverish and indistinct shade of red. 

Someone was sobbing; he could hear it as though it was right by his ear, but he could not discern where exactly it was coming from, whether upstairs or down, or from which room. It grew no louder as he began to ascend the staircase, nor any quieter, but it abruptly stopped when he reached the second floor. Everything was silent, save for the bell still ringing in his room; even the ugly tick of the grandfather clock had stopped.

For a moment, he wondered if perhaps he was dead, and this grim and ghastly hallway was some mockery of misfortune in the afterlife. A morbid thought, and a ridiculous one, and yet somehow one with less terror than the  _ implications of reality _ . Kylo could not trust his senses, nor did he wish to, but still he steeled himself and continued. The door to Hux’s rooms was open though only slightly, and the warm light coming from inside seemed to promise asylum he was not convinced he would find within. 

At the creak of the door, Hux lazily looked round from where he was standing by the window, cigarette in hand as he blew smoke out into the hazy grey of pre-dawn. He was in a daring state of total undress, and wore his skin with a brazen carelessness that at once made Kylo doubt his own legs to keep him standing. He said nothing as he considered Kylo for a moment before taking another pull from his cigarette and turning back to the window.

Kylo waited for instruction, drinking in the long lines of Hux’s strong body picked out in the flush of firelight. The silence stretched into something uncomfortable, and Kylo was bold enough to clear his throat.

“Have you need of me, General?” he enquired with care. Despite Hux’s nudity - or indeed, because of it - there was something about the summons that set his teeth on edge, and made his heart batter uselessly against his ribs.

More silence from Hux; he leaned against the windowsill and gave a blaisé wave of his hand towards the bed. Kylo felt a flush of heat wash over the chill, and he nearly made to undress before he realised the bed was already occupied: there, nestled among the thick duvet so that only his legs could be seen from the door, was Piotr. From the glimpse of flesh it could be assumed he was also in a state of total undress, and seemed to be sleeping peacefully, one hand that reached out from beneath the heavy covers curled like a leaf.

Kylo frowned to hide his disappointment, “Ah. Shall I take him back to his room again?”

“Say, Ben - I did tell him not to talk to you,” Hux said, quietly and thoughtful. He exhaled smoke through his nose and tapped the ash from his cigarette, “Did I not?”

Kylo came to a slow stop at the end of the bed, and half-turned to look at Hux. The General give him a half-smile and a half-nod, as if to say  _ go on _ , but Kylo’s stomach was suddenly in knots and he feared what he would find beneath the blankets. With unsteady hands he gripped one corner and slowly peeled it back to reveal--

Piotr. Just Piotr; whole, unharmed, unbloodied. He looked as soft and warm as he always did, curled in on himself, seeming as though he was so peacefully in deep sleep-- and yet Kylo knew at once all light of life had left him. By the ghost of blue on his parted lips and the stillness of his little corpse, he was dead.

Kylo swayed on the spot as if intoxicated as a groundswell of emotion sprung up around his feet and threatened to swallow him whole: it was not grief, not sadness - no, indeed he cared little for the artist’s demise - it was  _ fear _ . Mortal fear at the realisation of the metaphorical knife that pressed against his throat, one that Hux had been sharpening all the while Kylo had assured himself he would never feel the bite of steel on skin. 

Hux had told him the penalty for violating their contract - for disobeying him - would be fatal. He had been perfectly transparent about it, he had not deceived Kylo in that sense, but the sincerity of that promise had not fully actualised itself until that moment, when he gazed upon a body that with a simple misstep, a mere second of doubt, could quite easily be his own.

“I need you to get rid of him,” Hux said, startling Kylo from his downwardly spiraling thoughts.

“Rid of him, sir?” he asked. He knew exactly what Hux meant, but he felt as though he had to hear it from his own mouth, just to confirm it was true.

“You’ve done that sort of thing in a past life, have you not? The Knights and all their noble wet work,” Hux said, a curl of disgust pulling at his lip in distaste, as though he hadn’t once tortured a man to death while Kylo stood guard. As though he hadn’t just murdered some hapless boy-child, still cooling in his bed, “Just try not to get blood on the carpet, if you can help it. I would rather not waste the money to pay off a maid to have it cleaned.”

Kylo gave a single nod, and Hux appeared to be satisfied. He took a final draw from his cigarette and flicked it out into the street below before closing the window. He approached the bed, and Kylo found that for all his fear, he could not tear his wet-eyed gaze from Hux, and how with this terrible knowledge, he seemed only to grow more beautiful, as if all the lines in him had hardened, all the edges sharpened. Kylo had a sudden and heartfelt wish to give himself unto the knife, to throw himself at his feet and embrace the finality of a fatal love.

“Oh, do stop ogling you dog, you’ve seen it all before. Now come on, take him and go. I’m tired, and I wish to sleep,” Hux said with a short sharp jab to Kylo’s chest. Kylo tried not to flinch away from him, and instead began to gather Piotr up, folding his slender arms across his chest. He felt as though he should apologise, or try and handle him in any way other than like a lump of meat, but there was nothing to do but leave.

\--

Kylo took him to the basement, the one place in the house he had not dared to go before, and in that dark and dank place, he broke him apart. Joint by joint, limb by limb, it was as if he had never been whole to begin with. 

He took him, or what he could find of him in the blackness, and buried it in the copse of trees across the cobbled street. With no shovel, he dug into the damp earth with his bare and bloody hands and hid the evidence of Hux’s crimes, unseen by the blank windows of the bank of houses, shrouded by a soft grey smur.

He knelt there for a long and indeterminate length of time, his fingers in the earth, his head bowed to the rain, and for a wild, careless moment he thought of getting to his feet and simply running, running until he found his Knights, running until he found the Emperor. He had a life he could return to: he could be Kylo Ren again, not Ben, but then--

Then he looked up, and through the murk, through the leaf-bare branches of the trees, there was but one light in the whole street, one light in his whole life, and it came from Hux’s window.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a feeling the next chapter will probably be the last. I'd love to hear any theories about how this might end! Let me know at [my semi-new Kylux sideblog broodmother](http://broodmother.tumblr.com/), or just follow for more writing, a weekly rec list, and other goodies.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 7 was intended to be the final chapter but it seems as though it somewhat grew legs and ran away with itself, so I had to split it in two. However, I do solemnly promise chapter 8 will not take 4 months to eek its way out like this one did, since I have already started it. This chapter is, once again, only partially beta'd (with much thanks to [blithesea](blithesea.tumblr.com) for the help) so I apologise for any mistakes.

Your name moves through the air...

piercing the heart:

it blooms, it tears.

Segovia Amil, _Heart's Song_

\--

 

At first Kylo dismissed the gnawing hurt in the pit of his belly to be some malingering spectre of guilt for his part in the artist’s unhappy fate (he could think of him only as _the artist_ , some othered formless shape; to even remember his name would be to bring that dreary spirit back to his halls), though at fever’s first shivering kiss on his brow, he wondered if he had instead simply caught a chill from being out in the rain-streaked night, half-sunk into the sodden earth. He had spent too long mired out there, first to do the deed, second to compose himself so that if Hux wished to see him - he did not, it became apparent soon after, but there was always _if_ \- he was at least in some fit state of mind.

Tears stained his pillowcase as he tried and failed to grasp at watery sleep, but he did not weep. On reflection, it was then he realised that truly he was ill indeed, but not for the sake of any midnight misfortune; it had been too long since Hux had last seen fit to dispense his ration of laudanum, the last time being the precious moments before Kylo had dared to ask him permission to contact his Knights. Their Knights. Hux’s Knights now, really. Kylo wept in earnest then, for them and for himself, as he felt tremendously sorry for having lost them, even if it was for love. In his sudden raw vulnerability, he found himself needing them more than ever.

Would they understand why he had dashed them on the rocks? Kylo supposed it did not matter any longer. He wouldn’t change it even if he could - even if he wished for it dearly. He tried to set such thoughts aside and rouse himself from bed. It was almost certainly the opium-eater’s sickness that was making him heart-weary and lachrymose, so he resolved to go to Hux first before the real pain started.

There had been a time long before he met Hux when his laudanum use was light and sparing, only a few drops when he was in the grips of another manic episode so that he might at least sleep. He then began to increase his dosage, gradually coming to use it for ever moderate inconvenience, every headache or restless night. Even so, it wasn’t until after he met Hux - or, more specifically until after Hux began dispensing it - did he ever feel the bite of its absence so quickly, or so keenly. Sometimes, it could be a mere few hours before the itch began beneath his skin, just out of reach. He had gone from those rare few drops to several vials per day. This indulgence seemed to be the one kindness Hux would ever be consistent in. How the master throws his cowed dog a bone!

It was after dinner hours but not so late in the day that Kylo had much hesitation in knocking upon the door to Hux’s study - well, no more so than usual. If he was working, then Kylo was trespassing on thin ice indeed. The answering silence pulled on for long enough that Kylo began to wonder whether Hux had left the house while he languished in bed, but eventually there was the sound of a throat being cleared.

“Come,” Hux called, and Kylo entered.

Hux was perched on the edge of the desk, papers in hand. Outwardly, he was calm but somewhat distracted; his shirt sleeves were folded to his elbows, and his hair was subtly dishevelled in that rare way which said he had ran his hands through it in frustration. The air was stifling, thick with heat and stale tobacco. He had been smoking indoors, which in itself was worrying.

“I was just about to ring for you,” he said. He did not look up from his work until Kylo had closed the door, and when he did, his brows lifted, “Good god, man. You look awful. Are you ill?”

“Of a sorts,” Kylo said. He shuffled forward, hands folded across his stomach to stop them from trembling so pathetically. He suddenly felt very much a fool for having to ask at all, “With regards to my-- my medication.”

Hux appeared nonplussed, “What about it?”

“Well. I haven’t had it,” Kylo ventured, “For some time, actually. Not since-- before.”

“Are you quite sure?” Hux asked, and the amused slant of his soft mouth had Kylo second-guessing the very ache in his bones, “Well, so be it.”

Hux crossed around the desk again and sat down, and for a heart-clenching moment Kylo was sure he was going to be dismissed and that would be the end of the issue, but he wasn’t. Instead, Hux opened one of the drawers and withdrew a small box, from which he produced several glass vials. He tapped one on the desk’s surface as though he had just been reminded of something.

“Since you are here already, I may as well speak with you. With autumn at an end, so comes winter and with it the social season. Since returning to the city, I have put a great deal of time and effort into reminding the good people that indeed I did not perish on the mountain. With the war going so well, military types are terribly du jour,” Hux said, “As such, I imagine our calendar shall be quite full.”

“Yes, of course,” Kylo said. It was a Herculean task to keep his eyes level on Hux’s face and not the bottle, “That is to mean you will be gone from the house more often?”

“I did say _our_ calendar, did I not? At such grand events, it is common and perhaps even expected to bring attendance, and so you shall attend,” Hux said.

Kylo could feel perspiration beading on his pallid brow; he really was unwell, and nothing could hold less appeal than having to serve at any sort of evening, then or in the future. He harkened back to Guymar Harrow’s birthday party on the mountain; the brazen laughter, the stinging brandy, the crying fiddle. They had drank and sang and played party games, and at the end of the night the musicians were made to kneel at the lip of a shallow grave in the woods for what they might have overheard. It had been ugly, and Kylo never wanted that taste of so-called revelry ever again.

“Gladly.”

Hux smiled, and Kylo knew he could read the ingenuity of the statement as if it was written on his face - oh, but could he say otherwise? Perhaps it was a test of his honesty, not his obedience, and still he did not dare even think to turn him aside. Hux leaned back in his chair and held the tear-drop vial up to the lamp, peering at it with one eye closed. The precious liquid inside caught the light and glowed a deep amber like resin.

“You know, if you were any other kind of man, I might think to make you work for it,” he said, “Beg for it, even. Do any sort of degrading business, really, because a man with a vice is a man on a leash. A leash I happen to be holding right here - and yet you would do it freely, would you not? Why, you’d probably even thank me for it; how _droll_ such things are.”

  
“It’s because I love you,” Kylo said. His hand twitched by his side as he choked back the urge to reach out for the vial, a motion so engraved in him it was very nearly automatic. He felt as though he had misstepped along the path of the conversation, and he was fearful that Hux would deny him for his clumsy grasping, “I am not any other kind of man; I am myself, and no-one else could love you as I do.”

  
“Several already have,” Hux said with a distant smile. He folded the laudanum away from sight in his palm but still beckoned Kylo forth, “Come then, lover. I will trade it for a kiss.”

Even as timorous as he felt, Kylo did not give Hux cause to ask twice. He went to him, stepping around the desk with as much grace as he could muster. Hux didn’t rise from his seat, and so forced Kylo to drape over him like a shroud, hands to his chest to stay balanced as their lips met. It was too soft, too sweet, almost hurtfully so. Hux framed his face in sure white fingers, his mouth so hungry, so tender as it worked to devour him in a kiss that deceived his weak and weary body with the same flood of flushing warmth that laudanum brought. He kissed Kylo like he was trying to take back every secret that had ever passed his lips, and if Kylo had been lost at sea during their conversation, he had truly slipped beneath the waves.

Hux pulled away and stood up, letting his thumb linger on Kylo’s slack mouth for a moment longer. He smiled in a way that was very nearly fond, and took Kylo’s hand in his own. He could feel the skin-warmed glass between their palms, but rather than passing it on and letting go, Hux began to gently but firmly guide Kylo from the room, out into the hallway and towards the stairs that led up to his quarters.

If Kylo could have resisted him then - without bones of glass and skin of parchment, without stolen breath, without burning blood - would he?

No. Never. Hux took him to his chamber.

\--

Even with his eyes closed, Kylo knew Hux was watching him. It was a subtle change in the air, like a focusing beam of light, or standing too close to a fire. He tried to ignore it, and hoped that if he appeared to still be asleep, Hux’s displeasure at his still being there would dampen. The General had been in good spirits the night before; they had retired early, and Hux had spent the evening feeding Kylo drops of laudanum in between drops of kisses. However, Kylo knew all too well such sudden and strange affections could disappear just as quickly as they came, and were particularly prone to evaporating in the trepidatious morning light.

  
“I know you are not asleep,” Hux said, “I can hear you thinking.”

  
Kylo blinked ‘awake’ with a sheepish pull of his lips. Hux was lying on his back, one arm behind his head; he was watching Kylo with a sort of detached air of disinterest, but he still felt scrutinized.

  
“Go run a bath,” Hux said.

  
Kylo got up and began to gather up the clothes he had been wearing the night before, not his servant’s clothes, but simple things nonetheless. It was not an out-right dismissal, and that in itself was enough to call forth a wellspring of hope in Kylo.

  
“Would you like salts or oils this morning?” he asked, shirt in hand. Hux frowned.

  
“It’s not for me,” he said, “Have you not looked in a mirror lately? You look awful. How am I supposed to be seen out in public with you?”

  
Kylo didn’t know how to respond at first. Indeed he hadn’t seen himself in a mirror for quite some time: he had never cared much for his appearance, and it had all seemed even more insignificant in his new life – cleanliness, of course, but what else besides that. Hux’s comment left him flushed with an unfamiliar shame, “I apologise.”

  
Hux’s mouth was a hard line. Kylo was reminded of how fiercely it had kissed him only hours ago, “Don’t be like that. Go on now. Bath.”

  
Letting the shirt drop to the floor again, Kylo moved through to the adjacent bathroom and turned on the taps. He let the bath fill part way before he lit the burner; he couldn’t stand a bath as hot as Hux liked it. He wasn’t sure anyone could. Even with a meek temperature, the water made his cold limbs itch as he sank into it, careful not to slop any over the side. It was very quiet in the bathroom, nought but the steady plink of the dripping tap to break the glassy silence. Kylo sat with his knees to his chest, almost afraid to reach for the soap since every move he made seemed to reverberate around the white-tiled room. When he strained his ears, he could hear nothing from next door; it was possible that Hux had fallen asleep again, as it was still obscenely early, or that he was waiting for Kylo to be finished.

It was the sort of situation that invited reflection, unbidden and perhaps not wholly welcome. From his supper of tincture, his head felt more clear than it had in days - or at least since the incident with the artist, and it brought with it a terrible, slithering sensation of realisation, of dawning. It was like hands, pushing his ribcage from the inside, or the upward drop of one’s stomach at fumbling the last step on a flight of stairs. Everything that had happened so far suddenly seemed to be little more than a child’s game, and now things were beginning to be serious, dreadfully serious.

He anticipated a disaster, a catastrophe. His very veins sang with danger; he could see it, a warning. Feel it caught between his teeth. He wished he could open his mouth and release it, or else swallow it - and yet the caustic haze of fear that came with knowing he could very well share the artist’s grave some day seemed buffeted, blown out to sea by a more consuming horror, a horror that rather than being lost to himself, he would lose the one that he loved with such a fevered devotion. It was this that crushed Kylo, and so he began to weep like a child with a suddenness that surprised even himself.

  
Fearful that Hux would hear him and _know_ , he allowed himself to sink beneath the water, eyes and mouth shut tight. The tub was too small by far to fit himself all under and left his legs exposed to the chill, but it served its purpose; in an effort of distraction, he wondered if it would take much effort to drown oneself, that regardless of strength of will perhaps the body had ways of preventing such a thing if hands were not there to hold it down. A man could not smother or strangle himself, similarly.

Then it was back again, that skin-prickling sensation of absolute scrutiny that broke his morbid thoughts. Kylo opened his eyes beneath the water to see Hux leaning over him, a blade in hand. He quickly sat up, spluttering a little from taking a gasp of water. What he had mistaken for a knife was actually a razor, though steel was steel, sharp and true, and Kylo’s initial jab of panic was not soothed. Hux pressed his thumb to the edge.

  
“Just testing if it is sharp enough,” Hux said, examining the line it left. He had a soap cup and brush on one knee, a towel on the other, “Nothing more miserable than a dull shave.”

  
The grey light that struggled through the grimy window washed the blue out of Hux’s silk robe and the red from his hair, but it couldn’t dull the glint on the razor’s edge. Hux pressed on Kylo’s shoulder to guide him to lie against the end of the tub, then carefully folded the towel into a rectangle and laid it over his eyes. Kylo stayed as perfectly still as he possibly could, and let Hux brusquely lather his face. The soap was silky and softly scented, something herbal and clean that he couldn’t put his finger on but he knew to be Hux’s own.

  
He swallowed when the brush was set aside. He felt Hux shift a little closer to him, the ghost of a loose silk sleeve against his chest. It took all his willpower not to flinch away at the first kiss of cold metal on his cheek. The strokes were slow, thorough, and Hux held him by his chin with such delicateness that Kylo felt as though he might bruise at the first stiff breeze – but all the gentle mindfulness the General could muster could not make Kylo relax by a single hair.

  
“You are awfully tense,’ Hux mused when Kylo instinctively pulled away from the sensation of the sharp edge whispering over the pulse point beneath his jaw, “Are you afraid my hand might slip?”

  
“No, General,” Kylo said, blinking into the darkness of the improvised blindfold. He wondered if he had caught sound of Kylo’s fitful tears before he had dipped beneath the water and had come to torment him for it, “Not slip.”

Hux laughed, and the breath of it against Kylo’s cheek raised the hair of his arms almost as much as the steel that bit into his thin skin when he pressed a little harder, just for a second. Was this it? Was the offense of sleeping in Hux’s bed unbidden grave enough to prove fatal? Perhaps he thought his weeping to be a slight against him. Hux had killed for less. Hux had killed for a conversation.

  
It was not so - or at least not yet. Hux removed the blade and rinsed it off in the cooling bath water, giving Kylo leave to pull off the towel. Hux took it, and wiped the residual soap from his now-smooth face with soft and kiss-like brushes. He smiled, showing far too many teeth for Kylo to feel so blessed by the gentle attention as he would normally.

  
“There. You’re halfway presentable now,” he said, “You shall look terribly handsome in your uniform, I think. The patrons will hardly be able to keep their hands to themselves.”

“They would not dare cross their General,” Kylo said, mustering what he could of a smile.

“Quite right,” Hux mused, “But still, I look forward to being able to finally show you off. They will be green with envy.”

Kylo folded his arms on the side of the tub, water lazily dripping from his fingers, “What if someone was to recognise me?”

“Who among them would know you as you? My Knights will not be there, nor the Emperor; it is not such a grand affair as all that, and those on the mountain remain there until _I_ call them back,” Hux said, “You don’t have to worry yourself about all that. What you do have to worry about, however, is catching a chill. Now, up and out! I can’t have you sneezing on the guests, can I?”

Kylo stood up with great effort, and was bundled into a waiting bath sheet, feeling every bit a child being patiently assured there were no monsters beneath his bed - _in_ his bed, perhaps, when he was good. When he was lucky, and raw. He leaned towards Hux, and tried to kiss him; Hux turned him away, and for all his curious affections that morning, his expression bore a twist of annoyance.

\--

It was a cold night, colder than any Kylo had known in the city thus far. Hux wore a great coat of fur over his impeccable dress uniform, the very same one he had worn when he had caught Kylo in the gardens that mist-threaded midnight and scared him into the house. It settled around him like a black cloud, a bristling soft wonder that Kylo wished to bury his hands in. It was a sort of barbaric luxury that he found particularly stimulating, and he had a great desire to see Hux wearing it and nothing else, to marvel at the frayed contrast against the white of his skin, and to take him in it. The audacity that had carried him to beg for the whip seemed to fall short of begging such an obscene request, but still lust lingered near when Hux wore it. Kylo had no such coat, only his footman’s uniform, and felt the chill with its short britches and jacket, legs bare under thin white silken stockings; Hux saw fit to let him share a corner of his traveling furs in the back of the carriage, though kept the lion’s share piled on his own lap.

The drive was a quiet one. Hux said little and spent most of the journey staring out of the small window at the lantern-lit streets, seemingly deep in thought. While the morning had began in high spirits, he had became increasingly irate and distracted as the day went on. Kylo had no intention of disturbing him, but he had his own consternation to grapple with at the prospect of what the evening held in store for them and much desired some sliver of comfort or even scorn from Hux. He held his tongue and kept his head low, and settled for watching Hux watch the lights, and the ebb and flow of shadows over his face.

There were several other carriages waiting on the circular pathway outside of the grand hall. Guests and servants alike milled around by the doors, politely filing inside and out of the cold. The doors themselves were thrown wide, and the hazy golden glow of many candles spilled carelessly down the marble steps. There came a change over Hux’s countenance when he laid eyes on the scene; a shift so minute that Kylo might have missed it, had he not been studying him with such close-kept adoration.

It was a release, like a switch being turned. There was no longer any trace of agitation or feverishness in his being. As the carriage came to a rolling stop, he turned to Kylo with a smile so placid, so cold that it chilled the blood in his veins, and alighted without waiting for the steps to be set out. Kylo was left to scramble in an attempt to not seem slovenly in attending his master, but Hux was already ahead of him.

He ascended the staircase slowly, with an indolent majesty, and of course, all eyes were on him immediately. At the top, he stopped for a moment only to let the fur coat slip from his shoulders and pool at his feet; he stepped out of it with grace and the crowd parted for him like a shoal parts for a shark. There was a ripple of salutes from the brass amongst them, none of which Hux cared to return. He was a king, a god, and may as well have been walking a mile above their heads for all he acknowledged the many faces.

Kylo picked up Hux’s furs; they were still warm, and for a moment he could not compose himself - he took them, held them to his face to breathe the scent and feel the warmth. He kissed the spot that might have touched Hux’s neck the way he kissed that neck itself, and was as charmed. It felt like a holy relic in the hands of some pitied pious follower. Hux half-turned to glance at him over his shoulder.

“Put that away,” the General said, and seemed unconcerned by such a display, “You will wait out here with the others until you are required.”

To his dismay, Hux left him then and proceeded into the grand hall at the far end of the ante-room where they had entered, taking with him all the warmth of the candles and leaving Kylo to shiver with the cold at his back. He felt lost there among the others - the remaining servants, as he had surmised - until one of them, sensing his uncertainty, showed him where to leave the furs.

Some tried to make conversation with him a few times, mostly about what it was like to serve a man of such standing, but stopped when the only reply they received in return was a glower from beneath creased brows. They would not understand. Why describe a mountain to an ant? He sat apart from them, and pickled in his own acrid jealousy. There was something terribly unfair about being made to come along, and then having to sit outside for the entire evening. He had not wanted to come, but since he had no choice, at the very least he expected to remain with Hux, to watch him fight and hunt in the arena he was made for.

Kylo could only imagine who Hux could be conversing with, who he had captured in a glance across the crowded hall, who had been so bold as to ask him to dance (Hux would decline; he did not dance, but he would charm and flatter and tangle them up in his web if they were worth keeping). Who approached, and who simply watched? Of course, there could be no exceptions: he did that, pulled entire rooms, entire crowds of people towards him as surely as North drew the compass point.

It was what made him such a noted General, marked by astounding advancement at a young age, adored by his men and respected by his fellow officers. Bold and subtle, beautiful in such a knifing, underhanded manner, cocksure and yet never _quite_ cocky - oh, who could stand a chance against such a barrage of a man? Less a man, and more that of a heavenly creature, first Ares and then Aphrodite.

With his rancor slipping, subverted into rosy rumination, it took Kylo a moment to realise that the music from the grand hall had stopped - not in a discordant manner, but slowly and deliberately. As if waiting for such a cue, the other servants around him began to stir and stand, fixing and preening as they moved towards the doors which had been shut on them. Kylo was confused but thought it wise to follow suit; from the scraps of conversation he was able to catch, there was to be an auction of some kind, and they were summoned should their masters and mistresses bid on aught that needed to be carried out.

The fact that Hux had not mentioned such an auction made Kylo somewhat uneasy, though he supposed ‘somewhat uneasy’ was simply his base state of being since coming to the city. More to the point, he was already too eager to be back with Hux, and was curious to see what he would bid on, if anything. He followed the rest with a disciplined demureness.

He spotted Hux at once, distinguished both by his height and by his colouring, as he had removed his officer’s cap and tucked it tightly under his arm. He give Kylo a cursory glance when he arrived by his side and nothing more, not so much as a quirk of his lips to show recognition. Even the basking, buttery light of a hundred candelabras could not soften the cruel lines of Hux’s face, so proud with its comely profile, and Kylo was nearly overcome by such a perfect show of disregard as though struck with a fist. Did he even know how Kylo had been pining like a dog in the ante-room, slavish in love with no regard for seemliness? Of course he did.

“It’s unbecoming for a servant to stare so brazenly,” Hux said, his voice soft, low. He did not turn his head to look at Kylo as he spoke, “Do pay attention.”

It was agony of a sorts, to be so close and know he could not and would not touch him, or nip at his heels for attention, but Kylo did try to focus on the proceedings. The first of the lots were standard auction affairs: antiques, curios, and so on. One particularly fine ruby-picked tiara fetched a frankly obscene price, more money spent than Kylo had perhaps ever own in his life. It came with a polite applause and a great deal of self-congratulations on such a good show of patriotism; _for the Empire_ was the mantra of the evening, but he suspected that each bidding flash of fan or cap or dainty gloved hand was more a show of wealth than any actual generosity.

Hux’s cap remained held beneath his arm. He did not bid on a single item, nor did he join in with the movements of the crowd. In fact, his face was impassive until the moment at which three easels were brought on stage, each covered with a black shroud, at which point he smiled. Kylo felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Our next lots are sure to stir no end of interest amongst our bidders this evening,” the auctioneer said, gesturing broadly to the easels, “Three portraits generously donated from our very own General Armitage Hux’s _private_ collection. A round of applause for the General, ladies and gentlemen; he is, after all, fighting the good fight for all of us here tonight.”

Hux gave a slight incline of his head in response to several hundred pairs of eyes turning to fix on him. Kylo knew at once what the paintings would be, and his heart clenched as the shrouds were removed and his fears were confirmed. Three portraits, dashed upon the canvas in the unmistakable strokes of-- of _him_ . The artist. The spectral hand that would not leave him alone. It pulled at his hair and tugged on his sleeve, and all the while whispered _danger, danger_ in his ear.

The first of the portraits was a fairly traditional puff-portrait, lively in nature, intense in palette, depicting the General on horseback and presumably in battle. The sky behind him was blackish with cloud or smoke, split by a flash of canon or lightning, but light yet broke in the distance. He was gesturing to it with a broad sweep of his arm, his horse rearing, head thrown back. It was beautiful, and flattering; it was the sort of portrait men who considered themselves important liked to commission.

The second was a softer piece, one of a youthful Hux as Adonis in a huntman’s cloak and well-polished boarspear. Unlike the war portrait, he was boldly looking directly at the viewer in challenge or perhaps invitation, his body turned as though he was about to walk out of frame. The colours were a flush of warmth, and the General’s casual pose was at once charming and inviting.

The third and final portrait was unique in a way Kylo had not seen in a publicly displayed portrait before, and he hated it on sight. Hux, sat at his desk, chin in hand, seemingly unaware of being watched. Kylo was at his elbow, sitting a cup down beside him, caught in a shy glance at the General lost in reverie. The light was soft; the only thing in the photo that was pulled in focus was Hux’ face. It was too sweet, too familiar. Hux’s little finger pressed to the corner of his mouth, lips parted, the sweep of colour in Kylo’s cheeks, the curl of his body standing over Hux. It hadn’t been posed, as the others had, there was no sitting session for it. It had been painted from memory, a frame pulled out of time from an evening together.

The polite applause pattered into a lingering silence, undercut by whispers: while not especially scandalous themselves, the three together gave an impression of intimacy that was surely intentional. What stirring it would cause, especially considering the artist had been marked as anonymous. Afterall, why deny ownership of such pieces if not for some veiled reason? It would be enough to turn the rumour mill for weeks to come. Was the artist his lover? No, he was a member of the rebellion! No, no, it was the General himself, a man of secret talents beneath that polished, pulled-tight exterior.

The paintings each fetched a fair sum: not as much as the tiara, perhaps, but enough to flatter Hux. Kylo didn’t know who bid, nor who won, and didn’t care to find out. He listened to the proceedings with lead in his stomach and the first flush of something hot and wretched under his skin. He waited until the first moment Hux was distracted by another clamouring patron, and all but fled from the hall.

Oh, it was horrendously rude, he knew, and unprofessional too. No servant should leave without permission, but Kylo found he could care little about keeping up appearances. He simply wanted respite from the heat, the noise, the ugly and angry feeling pressing down on him from all sides. There was a corridor on the other side of the vestibule from the hall, dimly lit and likely leading to the kitchens, as Kylo had observed several housestaff carrying trays to and from it. Kylo ducked down the corridor, head low, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible. The vestibule was not empty despite the action of the ongoing auction, and his passing by would most certainly be noted by the more _observant_ among them.

Out of sight, Kylo braced himself against the wall and closed his eyes, attempting to collect himself once again. It had been quite the rotten thing to sell the paintings, particularly one with Kylo’s own face in it, but he could not quite understand what it was about the evening that had disturbed him so. Was it perhaps some figment of jealousy? He felt bruised, and a little nauseous. He wished desperately to be somewhere dark, somewhere quiet. Somewhere alone with Hux, or apart from him entirely. Even the pervasive gloom of the red house would have been better than the ballroom.

Just as he had once suffered the push-pull of Hux’s affections on the mountain, he now began to feel the push-pull of his own. Kylo pressed a fist to his forehead in frustration, and from the mouth of the corridor, Hux laughed.

“Ben, really now. You know better than to leave without dismissal,” he said, though he was smirking.

Kylo pushed himself away from the wall and tried to find his voice, “I want to leave this place.”

Hux arched a brow in response, “Leave? But we have barely just arrived, and the night is yet so young. Is something the matter?”

Something very much was the matter, though _what_ exactly, Kylo did not know and could not explain. Hux seemed amused by his halting lack of response.

“Oh, I see,” he said, and began a slow approach, “You found the auction distasteful.”

“It was,” Kylo blurted before he could hold his tongue, “And reckless too. If someone was to pry into the artist, into the subject-- if they were to ask about us--”

“When did you become such a meek milk maid? I find myself wondering this too often as of late. When we met, you were a force of nature; all this bleating about taste, as though this entire coupling has been anything but an exercise in tastelessness,” Hux pushed into his space, forcing Kylo back against the wall. He lifted his chin in challenge, eyes flashing.

“If it is but a matter of taste, then allow me to give you something to cleanse the palette.”

His hands went to his belt and Kylo made a wounded, wordless noise of imploration. He shook his head once, for once was all he dared, and once was all he could manage. Just the threat of it was enough to set him all ablaze, his anger being leached from him until he was a ruined wreck of need.

“Master. Please don’t, not here--”

“They saw me follow you down here, those boys in the hallway. Neither of us have returned. Even a few moments is enough to compromise,” Hux said. He grabbed Kylo by the jaw, “If the gossip of shoe-shines and kitchen porters bothered me, I would have let you go. As it stands, I don’t. I won’t. I shall have what I came for. Get on your knees.”

Kylo folded like a slip of paper; he fumbled with Hux’s belt and britches before he was even asked, lip worried between teeth, a steady tide of red washing up his neck and over his face. Hux was not aroused, and Kylo’s shame was compounded because of it - he was already stiff in his footman’s britches, his blood stirred from the very moment Hux had approached him. He took him in hand and stroked him with a pressing sense of urgency, and the deepest desire to please him, and when the flesh began to firm, he ran his tongue from root to tip and swallowed him down.

It was nothing like the first time, when Hux had came to his room on the mountain with his cheeks all red and his hair out of place, and he had been patient as Kylo took him into his mouth like the eucharist and felt the ground shift under him. No, Hux’s face was white and stony, and there was no grace or care when he twisted his fingers in Kylo’s hair and pushed him down onto his cock. Kylo closed his eyes and parted his lips, and tried to please his master with what little freedom of movement he was afforded. Hux did not seem to care for his efforts; he held him in place and took his pleasure, hips rolling in his own rhythm with no regard.

“Wider,” he said. He didn’t call him beautiful, or heap praise upon him as he did then. He sounded impatient, irritated, “A little wider.”

Kylo gripped his thighs desperately and tried to focus on breathing around the cock in his throat without choking or retching. If Hux wanted only a warm wet hole for the moment, then he would be that, with spittle on his chin and tears in his eyes. The ground didn’t shift beneath him, but it felt as though at any moment it would open up and swallow him whole, and all he could do was cling on to the fabric of Hux’s britches as the General forced him flush to his pelvis and came down his gullet.

Hux pulled himself free and  tucked his softening cock back into his britches. Kylo stayed on his knees and wiped at the sluttish mess on his face, the tears and the spit and the shame. He was still aroused, a wet spot on the crotch of his cropped trou, but he knew not to expect relief. Hux was satiated, he had served his purpose and learnt his lesson. His own satisfaction was irrelevant.

It took Hux only a moment to gather himself again, so as to look as though nothing at all had happened. He was as implacable has he had been when he first arrived, without even a flush to his cheeks. With a twitch of his hand he bid Kylo to rise, and appraised him at arm’s length.

“Fix this,” he said with a general gesture to Kylo’s whole person, “Then count to thirty and follow after me. I expect more from you in the future, Ben. Do not let me down.”

Hux turned heel and departed from the corridor. Kylo waited a moment, and then began to count.

\--

They rode in silence on return to the house, Hux wrapped in his furs, and Kylo in his thoughts. There was an acrid tang at the back of his throat, equal parts bile and the General. He could taste it on every breath, every swallow, or so he imagined. He had not been allowed a single drink during the evening, and but he still felt drunk.

“Do you hate me?” Hux asked at one point, quiet as though just waking from sleep.

“As if I ever could,” Kylo said, though the question had caught him off-guard. Hux was silent, and turned to look at Kylo. With the dim lights of the streets behind him, his face was in total shadow, expression unknown. He turned away again after a moment.

“Yes. Yes, I think you could.”

\--

Were love and hate opposing forces? Oil and water, one unable to exist where the other was. Some men said yes, some men said no. Some believed that they were passioned twinned, and one withered in the absence of the other. Two sides of the same coin, two obsessions, the root of all desires.

Hate birthed pain into the world, but what if such pain bore love? Kylo knew his love was like no other known. The more Hux mistreated him, the more he strived to fulfil Kylo’s feverish dreams, the more he adored him. What then if Hux wanted Kylo to hate him? What then if Hux hated Kylo? Was it love in their own shades?

There were times when Hux turned the screw and Kylo could not tell the force that drove the hand behind it. There were times when the whip fell and he knew not what compelled its strike. If Kylo knelt to kiss the foot of a beautiful tyrant, what bent his back? Crushing beauty, splintering fear, the iron rod of-- of what now, love or loathing?  

  
Kylo turned in his bed, desperate for a moment’s respite from his thoughts that surged like the tide. He had brought the darkness to their bedside. He had coaxed it under the sheets. He had begged it to ruin him, to bind them like tar, and if it could be pried off a good and honest love without fracturing it beyond repair - well, he did not know if he would. What would he do with something soft, something wholesome and kind? Kindness was no kindness to him. Better the cane. Better the hurt. If that _was_ love in their own shades, at least it was a palette he could paint with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to talk about Sic Semper, or just want a cool drama-free dedicated kylux blog, come follow me at [broodmother](broodmother.tumblr.com).  
> If you want shitposting and general geeking, come say hi at [brood-mother](brood-mother.tumblr.com).


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